


pour your heart out on me

by SummerFrost



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (Light) Cock & Ball Torture, :D?, Aftercare, Banter, Barebacking, Belts, Biting, Blood, Blood Kink, Career Change, Come Marking, Crying, Domdrop, Face Slapping, Friends to Lovers, Heavy BDSM, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mutual Pining, Objectification, Overstimulation, Post-Break Up, Public Humiliation, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Spanking, Subdrop, Subspace, Video & Computer Games, Webcam/Video Chat Sex, YouTube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 13:16:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18223643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerFrost/pseuds/SummerFrost
Summary: Kent Parson is a famous Twitch streamer who challenges Bitty to an exasperatingly friendly competition. It only gets more complicated from there.





	pour your heart out on me

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I'm not gonna write a Twitch AU  
> Me: but if I were here's exactly how I'd do it
> 
> ,,,Anyway, blame or thank blithelybonny and soundslikepenance for enabling me. So much thanks to them both and shipped-goldstandard, who all beta'd. Soundslikepenance also provided significant guidance in how I developed the video chat modeling portrayal <3 
> 
> Title from Unsweet by DNCE

Holster shouts, “Bitty, holy  _ fuck!”  _ and throws open the door to the bedroom.

Bitty sits bolt upright in bed, smacking his head against the wall, and yelps, “Good Lord,  _ what?” _

“Kent Parson just @ you on Twitter,” Holster says. He flips on the light and Bitty hisses at him; the sun hasn't even risen. “I think he's streaming your YouTube channel.”

Bitty checks the clock on his phone—it's 3 AM and he's got an opening shift at the coffee shop in the morning. He glares at Holster suspiciously and asks, “Who the hell is Kent Parson?”

 

~*~

 

Kent Parson, better known by his gamer handle, “Parse,” is apparently an absurdly famous e-sports athlete and Twitch streamer who can make upwards of a thousand dollars a  _ day  _ from streaming. Bitty learns this against his will at three in the morning, trapped under the combined weight of Ransom and Holster and rubbing his eyes at a flickering laptop screen.

Parse is a minor Internet celebrity, mostly because he's the something or other position on the Devil Aces, a professional  _ (what?) _ team for a video game called _ Layers of the Inferno. _

 

(“It's the next League of Legends,” Ransom explains.

“Fascinating. What's League of Legends?”

Ransom sighs deeply.)

 

“Why is he streaming my baking channel?” Bitty asks, a little afraid of the answer.

“Streamed,” Ransom corrects. “He tweeted it out when he signed off. And dunno, but we can watch the vod.”

He clicks over to Twitch and types in Parse's channel. The latest vod is from earlier today and timestamps at over five hours long.

_ “No,”  _ Bitty protests. “Absolutely not! I have to work!”

Holster whines, “Aw, Bits, that's no fun!”

“Don't care.” Bitty shoves at both of them, shooing them off the bed. “Unless y'all don't want my share of the rent this month?”

Ransom shuts his laptop and hops out of smacking range. “Mad harsh, bro.”

“Out!” Bitty insists. He shoves at Holster again, who thinks he's being cute by trying to flop back against Bitty's chest. “You're both horrible!”

“You love us, Bits,” Holster tells him in an infuriating sing-song voice. He flees when Bitty chucks a pillow at him, though. Serves him right.

 

~*~

 

Bitty wakes up to a weird surge of followers on both Twitter and his YouTube channel, which he mostly ignores in favor of only being mildly late to work. By the time his shift is over, the number of new followers has tripled since the morning.

“Ridiculous,” Bitty mutters. He tabs over to his Twitter mentions on the bus ride home out of resigned curiosity.

**_@da_parse [4/23/19 3:02 AM]:_ ** _ @omgcheckplease ur vlog says so easy a hockey player can do it but im way smarter than a hockey player & my cake looks like this [a picture of a woefully flat and cracked-to-pieces chocolate cake] _

**_@da_parse [4/23/19 3:03 AM]:_ ** _ @da_parse @omgcheckplease can I sue u 4 false claims? _

**_@da_parse [4/23/19 10:27 AM]:_ ** _ All the haters saying u can do better here's the recipe I used [a link to Bitty's vlog] via @omgcheckplease put up or shut up [kissy face emoji] _

It was nice of him to credit the vlog, in theory, but Bitty's not sure he wants to be associated with whatever unspeakable things Parse did to his recipe.

He forces himself to stop by the grocery store on his walk home and pick up supplies for dinner, then heats up leftover casserole for lunch and pulls up Parse's Twitch channel on his laptop.

Parse is apparently live right now, but Bitty ignores that in favor of skimming through the broadcast from last night. For most of the five hours, there's a little video of Parse's face in one corner while the  _ Layers of the Inferno  _ video game dominates the screen. 

Towards the end, though, the view changes to Parse hunched over a kitchen counter. Bitty backs up the video to a few minutes before Parse leaves the desk and hits play.

“—gaming tonight,” Parse is saying. He hits the 'log off’ button in the middle of his screen. “But as the most loyal Parsnips know—”

“Parsnips?” Bitty mutters.  _ “Really?” _

“—it’s Monday late-night shenanigans!”

“I hate you,” Bitty tells the computer on principle.

Parse clicks his mouse and suddenly the entire screen is taken up by his face. He's leaned back jauntily in an expensive-looking chair, his hair tousled around a pair of wireless headphones. The video quality is good enough to see his stupid, definitely not attractive smirk widen as he winks at the camera.

“What should we do today, chat?” Parse asks. Bitty's eyes flick over to the right-hand side of the screen, where a ridiculous amount of usernames are flashing past as people comment suggestions in what apparently was real-time.

Instead of actually answering any of them, though, Parse snaps his fingers and says, “Wait, wait! I'm gonna show you fuckers how to bake a cake!” He pauses dramatically. “One problem—I don't know how to cook.”

The chat explodes again, mostly with people either saying 'same’ or chirping Parse for his lack of kitchen skills. But Bitty—and Parse, apparently—zeroes in on one comment.

**_curiousjorge:_ ** _ you should check out OMG Check Please on YouTube!! he does super easy tutorials :D _

**_curiousjorge:_ ** _ he's my fave YTer _

“OMG Check Please?” Parse repeats out loud, though the comment is already buried off-screen. He pulls up an Internet tab, shrinking the camera again, and types it in. “Jorge, if this is porn I'm gonna be  _ very  _ disappointed in you.”

It's obviously Bitty's vlog, though, and Parse ends up scrolling over to Bitty's top rated videos and picking the chocolate cake. Which Bitty would have told him is a terrible place to start for beginners, if he'd been consulted.

But Parse pulls together the ingredients and equipment (apparently by stealing from his roommates, of which he has  _ four  _ despite being 'totally loaded’ according to Ransom) and displays Bitty's vlog on half the screen while he cooks along to it on the other half.

Bitty watches the entire thing, develops an eye twitch and an ulcer, and then closes the vod to return to Parse's live feed.

Parse is at the same desk as before, in the middle of what looks like a match. His character is some weird, beautiful-but-uncanny elven looking thing, and he's talking to the chat while he shoots at little demon looking things.

“Nah, Hamster, I wouldn't build Lion's Greaves on Alianna,” he says, then shoots a glowing arrow at the demons. “She wants to max attack speed—Serpent's is better.”

The arrow goes through the entire line of demons and hits a giant rock thing on the far end, wrapping it in what looks like netting; it has a name above it, so maybe that's an enemy player?

Video games are stupid.

Parse's character shoots normal arrows at Giant Rock Thing and then backflips away when the net disappears, hiding behind another character that looks like a haunted suit of armor.

“That's why you don't overextend, children.” Parse drinks from a water bottle, wiping at his mouth, then adds in a sing-song voice, “Speaking of which, we're gonna get ganked as fuuuuck.”

A British voice from within the game says, “Retreat left lane! Retreat left lane!” over and over, which definitely isn't obnoxious at all. Parse's elf character backflips over an incoming row of little demon things just in time for a horrifying  _ giant  _ demon thing to leap over a wall and land right where he used to be.

Parse's character lands in a glowing circle the same color as his username, and the giant demon attacks his teammate instead. The two other enemy players that were already in the area attack too, and his teammate dies.

Parse's elf waves at the enemies—the demon waves back, then runs away.

“Chat,” Parse sighs dramatically. “Why do randos never listen to me when I am totally right  _ all the time?  _ Does no one watch the LPL anymore?”

Bitty rolls his eyes, but he glances over at the chat with...curiosity. Parse is still actively playing the game, killing more of those little demons and staying out of range of the human opponents, but he's also clearly reading most of the chat at the same time and answering questions.

The guy's a tad arrogant for Bitty's liking, but being able to multitask like that  _ is  _ pretty impressive, Bitty begrudgingly admits. 

It suits his purposes, anyway, because his channel's reputation is on the line here and he will not stand for Kent Parson's slander.

The chat won't let him comment without a Twitch account, though, so he goes through the signup process in a separate tab while he listens to Parse give advice on 'building’ various things, whatever that means.

At least he has a pleasant voice.

While Bitty is away, though, something new happens: a donation notification flashes across the screen. It displays the dollar amount, the name of the person who donated, and a robot-lady voice reads a message out loud. 

The person is asking Parse to play something or other next that Bitty doesn't understand—maybe a character, or a game mode? Bitty basically ignored Ransom and Holster's entire explanation yesterday.

But it gives Bitty an  _ excellent  _ idea, because obviously Parse and the entire chat immediately pay attention to what this person asked for, and that's exactly what Bitty needs to happen.

He waits for Parse to looks less distracted and then donates $1, which is the minimum amount. The donation goes through and the robot-lady announces, “You under-beat the batter and took the cake out of the pan too soon.”

Parse scrunches up his face while the message plays. “What the fuck? Wait—Check Please? Hey! Are you the baker guy?”

Bitty rolls his eyes again and types into chat.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ yes and my instructions clearly stated how long to beat it!! _

Parse smirks. “See, there's your problem, friend. I don't usually do my own beating, if you know what I mean.”

The chat overflows with eye emojis, which Bitty wants no part of.

Parse catches someone else's message, though, because he says, “Is my stream kid-friendly, PandaCat? Uh, I curse a lot, but otherwise probably?”

Bitty is going to pull a muscle in his eyeballs.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ you just made a sex joke _

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ it wasn't even a good one _

“Okay,  _ and  _ the occasional really fucking hilarious sex joke,” Parse corrects. He shoots one last arrow at a glowing staircase, which crumbles to the ground and disappears. “Maybe just don't let your kids watch after midnight?”

He winks at the fucking camera again.

“Anyway, Checkie, I'll give you the batter on user-error,” Parse continues, which is actually kind of surprising. “But you  _ definitely  _ didn't say when to take it out of the pan.”

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ YES, I did! _

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ I said let it cool down!! _

Parse kills the enemy team's elf and then backflips away from Giant Rock Thing, who his friendly suit of armor starts fighting instead. 

_ “Dude,  _ I let it cool for like five fuckin’ minutes,” he argues. He barely even looks away from the screen to read what Bitty says. It's ridiculous. “No one has more patience than that in the entire world.”

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ Plenty of people do! For example: PEOPLE WHO ARE GOOD AT BAKING _

Parse turns his character into a hole in the wall that was separating him from more of the map. The design is actually pretty cool, with crumbling stones and flames licking up from cracks in the floor; whoever made this game  _ really  _ leaned into the hell theme. 

“I totes shouldn’t be stealing purple buff right now,” Parse says. He’s fighting a group of purple-glowing monsters, which is probably related. “But what’s life without a little—oh  _ fuck oh shit  _ it’s their Apollyon.”

Context tells Bitty that ‘Apollyon’ is that giant demon from before, which has presently unleashed a swarm of...something onto Parse’s elf. Bugs, maybe?

Parse dies trying to run away from the bugs, and a ‘respawn’ timer shows up on the screen. He pulls up some sort of menu while he waits and clicks around on it, and says, “Anyway, Checkie, I thought the point of your channel was that I didn’t have to be good at baking.”

Bitty glares at the screen. 

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ no, just good at following instructions (: _

Parse barks out a laugh, then looks dead into the camera with a smirk. “Maybe you should give me better orders.”

He turns back to his screen before Bitty can even  _ begin  _ to process that, running his elf away from some sort of basecamp. The British voice from before announces, “On my way!”

Bitty rubs at his face. There’s no way Parse meant that the way Bitty’s thinking—or, at least, there’s no way he’s  _ flirting  _ with Bitty for real. Even if he is the exact kind of cocky brat that Bitty likes to push around with—

No, no, absolutely not, Bitty is not going to entertain that line of thinking. And yet, he puts his fingers back to the keyboard.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ You asked for it, sweetheart (: _

Parse laughs again, this time vaguely high-pitched, and takes a hand off his mouse to fidget with his headphones. He meets up with Friendly Suit of Armor and asks, “Jesus, are you this terrifying in person, Checkie?”

Bitty bites his lip around a smile. 

 

~*~

 

It takes Bitty four days to make the video, and it’s the first one in a while that doesn’t have one of his friends guest starring. In keeping with the vlog theme, the video is called  _ ‘Slutty Blondies - So Easy a Layers of the Inferno Player Can Do It,’  _ and he tweets it at Parse directly. 

Parse retweets the link with the response ‘CHALLENGE ACCEPTED,’ and then slides into Bitty’s fucking DMs. 

**_@da_parse [4:12 PM]:_ ** _ u didn’t have to literally come 4 me personally like this _

Bitty just messages back a smiley face.

 

~*~

 

He leaves Parse’s stream on all afternoon and tells himself it’s entirely for the potential publicity. Unrelatedly, he remembers that he’s a very good liar. 

 

~*~

 

Parse doesn't stream Bitty's video that day, though, or the day after. Bitty writes it off as a bizarre one-off thing that Parse didn't feel like continuing, which is fine. He's happy with the burst of followers he got, and it's not like he cares about talking to some arrogant boy who plays video games for a living anyway.

And then Parse DMs him Monday afternoon.

**_@da_parse [3:50 PM]:_ ** _ hey im gonna stream ur vid tonight _

Bitty absolutely does not feel a flutter of excitement in his stomach.

**_@omgcheckplease [3:53 PM]:_ ** _ Oh, thanks! I hope your followers enjoy it :) _

**_@da_parse [3:53 PM]:_ ** _ so you'll be there right? _

Bitty raises his eyebrows.

**_@omgcheckplease [3:54 PM]:_ ** _ Umm no, some of us have to work Tuesday morning :P _

**_@da_parse [3:57 PM]:_ ** _ oh. _

**_@da_parse [3:59 PM]:_ ** _ do u work wednesday morning? _

**_@omgcheckplease [4:01 PM]:_ ** _??? _

This conversation is bizarre. Bitty rubs at his face.

**_@da_parse [4:06 PM]:_ ** _ Like it'd be better for the bit, you know? If you're looking for the promo that is. _

Bitty lays his phone down on the table and looks up at the ceiling. He's gotten a solid burst in subscribers since last Monday, which is objectively fantastic. If that trend continues, maybe he could finally kick the part-time job and go into creating full-time.

**_@omgcheckplease [4:13 PM]:_ ** _ Oh, that makes sense! Sorry, I've had a long day, lol. But I could do Tuesday night if you don't mind waiting! _

**_@da_parse [4:14 PM]:_ ** _ sweet see u then _

**_@da_parse [4:14 PM]:_ ** _ promise i'll follow ur every command this time ;) _

“Y'all,” Bitty announces to Lardo and Shitty, “it's possible I've made a huge mistake.”

Lardo raises her glass of water at him. “Cheers, bro, I'll drink to that.”

 

~*~

 

Bitty tunes into Parse's stream shortly after midnight and sees that he's playing Tetris  _ very _ poorly while the chat frantically types commands at him.

Bitty can see how someone may find that endearing.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ This doesn't look like baking Mr. Parson _

Parse laughs and accidentally stacks a zig-zag piece the wrong way around over a row. “I was waiting for you, Checkie.”

Bitty primly ignores that.

“Okay, okay, that's enough of that,” Parse says, closing out of the game. He pulls up an Internet browser and then opens his bookmarks, where Bitty's vlog is listed at the top. “Time to make some slutty blondies—Checkie, what the fuck is a blondie?”

Bitty scoffs indignantly.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ Did you not watch the video yet?? _

Parse smirks. “That defeats the purpose of the exercise, which is to see if you can actually dumbass-proof your gig.”

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ You are exhausting _

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ AS MY VIDEO SAYS a blondie is a brownie with brown sugar instead of chocolate _

Parse tilts his head at the camera and asks, “Okay, so what makes it slutty?”

Bitty grins at his computer, biting at his bottom lip. He'll give credit where it's due—Parse knows how to set up a punchline.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ well, honey, it's cause you can sure put a whole lot in em _

The chat loses its mind after that apparently, but Bitty is watching Parse's face for the reaction. 

He laughs, leaning back in his fancy chair that's still just as obnoxious as before, and says, “Aww, baby, you really did make this for me!”

Bitty pushes his laptop down his legs and sits up a little straighter. It's part of the persona, obviously, but it's—Bitty just can't tell if it's...ironic, or not. 

He's not  _ proud  _ of it, but he may or may not have searched Parse's entire Twitter and press for any mentions of  _ ‘gay’  _ or  _ 'bisexual’  _ or anything to do with being queer. It turned up empty, except for a single Twitter-rant that Parse posted a few years ago attacking homophobia and transphobia in the e-sports industry.

So he's obnoxious, but not a total tool. Bitty leaves well enough alone and goes back to typing.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ *eyeroll* just watch the video Parse _

“Okay, okay, yeesh,” Parse answers. But he still doesn't press play. “For any Parsnips out of the loop, I've challenged OMG Check Please here to a friendly competition—I'm shit at baking, and we're gonna see if he can teach me.”

Well, that's a little dramatic. But Bitty bites his tongue.

“Luckily for all of us, Checkie has a kick-ass YouTube channel.” Parse copies and pastes the link into chat. “Give him a follow and tag me on Twitter if you can out-bake me.”

Interesting. 

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ I have an actual name you know. It's in my Twitter bio which I KNOW you've seen _

Parse does a finger wave at the camera. “But I  _ like  _ calling you Checkie. Chat, doesn't it suit him?”

A lot of people in chat respond. Some of them get a little creepy, like  _ 'youre so lucky parse gave you a nickname’  _ and  _ ‘[eye emoji] bruh are they flirting,’  _ with the inevitable  _ 'no way parse dated that chick forever’  _ mess in response, but Bitty does his best to ignore all that.

Parse finally hits play on the video, and Bitty braces himself.

_Hi, y'all!_ says video Bitty. _You may have noticed that I don't have one of my usual guest stars today. That's because this video is dedicated to a new...acquaintance of mine, who needs a little extra help in his instructions._

“Mad harsh, bro,” Parse says.

Video Bitty smiles, and a pop up to Parse's Twitter and Twitch appears on the screen.  _ His name is Parse, and if y'all like video games or pretty boys who think the sun comes up to hear 'em crow, y'all should give him a follow! _

“Aww!” Parse puts a hand to his chest. “Checkie, you think I'm pretty?”

Bitty sighs.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ THAT'S what you got from that? _

Parse grins. “Well, yeah. The rest made no sense.”

On the video, Bitty is explaining what a blondie is and going over the ingredient list. Parse keeps pausing it while he roots around for things in his kitchen, and that's when Bitty realizes that some people in chat are asking him things.

**_curiousjorge:_ ** _ @omgcheckplease OMG it's so cool to talk to you!! _

**_curiousjorge:_ ** _ how did you come up with this recipe? _

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ Um, hi! You're too sweet :) I already had a blondie recipe that I liked, but I had to play around with the proportions for the add-ins _

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ Let's just say my roommates are well-fed :P _

Bitty chats with a few more people while Parse sets up, then resumes his previous occupation of chirping the hell out of him while he works.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ you know, maybe you'd be better at this if you didn't spend so much time making dick jokes with the chat _

Parse makes a dismissive noise at the suggestion. “Maybe I'd be better at this if you  _ actually _ taught me how to crack an egg.”

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ What?? _

Parse rewinds the video and plays the part where Bitty cracks the first egg one-handed, which he mostly did to be a show off. Pausing the video again, Parse holds an egg up in his hand, then shifts the camera so that it has a good view of him holding it over the mixing bowl.

Then he fucking crushes the egg in his hand like something out of  _ Of Mice and Men  _ and yolk and shell splats everywhere with a  _ very  _ unpleasant combination of sounds.

“Ow, fuck!” Parse flings the obliterated egg into the mixing bowl on reflex, shaking his hand out as he takes a step back.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ fkoeodoeksos WHY??? _

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ WHY DID YOU JUST _

“That's how you did it!” insists Parse, his voice high-pitched and tinged with almost-laughter. “With the—the one hand thingy!”

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ NO I DID NOT _

Parse turns on the faucet and starts washing his hand clean. “It's fine! It's fine! I can fish all the shells out.”

Bitty shoves his laptop away from himself and flops over on his stomach to bury his face in a pillow, unclear on whether the sound coming out of his mouth is screaming or laughter. Or some unholy combination of both.

“It's fine,” Parse is repeating. “That hurt like a motherfucker. How many eggs do I need?”

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ DO NOT JUST FISH THE SHELLS OUT _

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ THATS HOW YOI GET SALMONELLA _

Parse responds to Bitty's caps-lock with a matched level of verbal enthusiasm. “Then what am I supposed to do?!”

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ THROW IT ALL OUT!! _

There are people in the chat asking what salmonella is, which is concerning. But people seem to sort it out amongst themselves, and Bitty needs to concentrate on not being responsible for the poisoning of an absurdly rich e-sports personality.

“But I already mixed all the other ingredients,” Parse is arguing. He's still picking bits of eggshell out of his bowl and flicking them onto a paper towel. “I'm not—I don't wanna start over.”

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ Start. Over.  _

Bitty hesitates, chewing on his bottom lip.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ You promised to behave _

It's possible that Parse's eyes widen just a little. Or it could be a trick of the light.

He fiddles with his headphones, though, and says, “Okay, okay, fine. Square one it is.”

Bitty smiles with relief, and possibly something else.

 

~*~

 

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ I am BEGGING you to just crack the eggs with a fork _

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ BEGGING _

“That's not what the video does, Checkie.”

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ I should have let you get salmonella _

 

~*~

 

Parse runs out of eggs before he finishes the video, ruling the competition a flop on a technicality. Bitty stomps into the kitchen that night and makes a new vlog entry.

**_@omgcheckplease [5/1/19 3:32 AM]:_ ** _ New video! “Cracking an egg with one hand - So easy the STUBBORNEST MAN ALIVE can do it” [YouTube link] @da_parse _

**_@da_parse [5/1/19 3:35 AM]:_ ** _ @omgcheckplease [winking kissy face emoji] _

 

~*~

 

**_@da_parse [3:35 AM]:_ ** _ u look a little tired bby u should get some sleep _

**_@da_parse [4:00 AM]:_ ** _ too far? _

**_@da_parse [4:05 AM]:_ ** _ [a link to the music video for 'Baby Come Back’ by Player] _

 

~*~

 

**_@omgcheckplease [11:17 AM]:_ ** _ Are you infuriating on purpose or is it your natural personality _

**_@da_parse [11:25 AM]:_ ** _ ['Why Not Both?’ gif] _

 

~*~

 

**_@omgcheckplease [5/6/19 7:47 PM]:_ ** _ New video! “Plain Blondies - So easy I pray to God @da_parse can do it” [video link] _

**_@da_parse [5/7/19 12:21 AM]:_ ** _ @omgcheckplease and dearest Parsnips, tune in tonight to find out! [kissy face emoji] _

 

~*~

 

Bitty would hate that it becomes a thing, except that he's making an absurd amount of money. 

 

~*~

 

**_@da_parse [6:22 PM]:_ ** _ I have a proposal 4 u _

**_@omgcheckplease [6:27 PM]:_ ** _ Oh, honey, I hope you didn't buy the ring yet _

**_@da_parse [6:28 PM]:_ ** _ ur friends wont tell me what size u wear _

**_@da_parse [6:28 PM]:_ ** _ Seriously though, I think we should make this a regular collab and put you on video with me. You can teach me live so your YT content isn't tied up anymore to hang out with me. _

Bitty raises his eyebrows at his phone. They've been having some fun, trading a few videos back and forth and bantering for the chat—but Bitty never expected this to be sustainable. His best-case scenario was retaining most of the new subscribers after the hype died down, and maybe getting the overhead to set up an online bake shop.

**_@da_parse [6:29 PM]:_ ** _ Late night is best for me but I'm willing to move it earlier if necessary. _

Bitty looks around the apartment, but no one's home from work or school yet. Not like he doesn't know what everyone's advice would be, anyway. They all range from pleasantly amused to full-on obsessed with Parse.

**_@omgcheckplease [6:31 PM]:_ ** _ No, that sounds great! Tuesday nights are good because I have two mornings off in a row after that. Just let me know what video chat program is best for that kind of thing.  _

Bitty sets the phone down and rubs at his face with both hands, taking a steadying breath. 

**_@omgcheckplease [6:32 PM]:_ ** _ Um, just out of curiosity...what are you getting out of this? I don't exactly bring that many more viewers in for you. _

Parse takes a weirdly long time to answer, by his standards anyway. Bitty even pulls up Twitch to see if he's live, but he isn't, and then the phone buzzes.

**_@da_parse [6:38 PM]:_ ** _ fuck maybe I just fucking like talking to you _

**_@da_parse [6:38 PM]:_ ** _ is that a good enough reason or do you need another one _

Bitty flips his phone face down and tries to stand up and digs his fingers into the aching tension under his eyebrows instead, and thinks for so long about what to say back that he ends up never saying anything at all.

 

~*~

 

Parse streams  _ Layers of the Inferno _ later that night, looking particularly fuckboy-ish with a backwards snapback on under his headphones and an unbuttoned collared shirt with nothing underneath.

Bitty throws himself on the couch between Ransom and Holster and tunes in shortly after Parse goes live, feeling vaguely off-kilter and maybe a little guilty, if he were to examine it more closely. He means to just lurk in the stream without saying anything. Just to...he's not sure. See if Parse looks mad?

“Welcome, Parsnips,” Parse says, waving at the camera while he waits for a match. “We're gonna duo-queue ranked today with my trusty support, Swoops. He's in comms with me and we're gonna agree up front that if at any point you hear screaming, I was  _ totally  _ right to go for that kill and Jeff is being a baby.”

A human voice, apparently Swoops/Jeff, says, “Fuck you, man.”

Bitty adjusts his earbuds, smiling into the side of his hand.

Parse ignores his teammate and says, thumbing through some kind of character select, “So, today's the first day of the new split which means we've gotta work our way back to Grandmasters. I'm gonna go try-hard and try to draft Alianna, 'cause she's broken as fuck after last patch.”

“Do you want Yves or Omarin with her?” Swoops asks.

“No, Kraken, they won't ban Alianna over Greta. It's mid-lane's meta right now,” Parse says. “Jeff, let's get your guardian last and counter-pick their ADC.”

Bitty rolls his eyes fondly.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ I still don't understand 70% of the words that come out of your mouth _

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ Like, you know how adults talked in the old Charlie Brown cartoons? That's your voice to me. _

Parse grins, looking away from the camera for a second. When he looks back up, his tone is as cocky as ever. “Hey, Checkie, you here to hangout?”

Bitty slides further down the couch, putting his feet up on the coffee table and resting his head against Ransom's shoulder.

**_omgcheckplease:_ ** _ Seems like it. What the hell is an ADC? _

Ransom glances at his screen and offers, “You know I could teach you how to play, right?” 

“Excellent question, my dearest noob,” Parse says cheerfully. “ADC is one of the five positions in Layers, and it stands for 'Attack-Damage Carry,’ and according to science I'm the best one in the world.”

Bitty turns the volume up on the stream. “Um, I'm good, thanks.”

 

~*~

 

It's like that co-worker you make small talk with who makes your job marginally less awful, but you wouldn't invite them out for drinks after work. It's not like they're friends.

Really.

 

~*~

 

“Yo, Bits,” Holster says, knocking on the frame of Bitty's door. “We're gonna stream the Devil Aces’ first match of the split. Wanna join?”

Bitty closes out of the Twitch stream on his laptop. “Oh, um, sure. I'm not really up to anything.”

 

~*~

 

Parse video calls Bitty at random at 2 PM on a Sunday.

“Bitty,” he says, which is the first sign something's wrong. “I did something really fucking stupid.”

Bitty asks, “What's new?” on pure reflex.

“Ha ha,” Parse answers, probably going for dry and hitting strained instead. “I said I'd cook dinner for like three of my teammates’ families and my mom and I have no fucking idea what I'm doing and it's tonight.”

Bitty stares at Parse's face on the phone in disbelief.  _ “Why  _ would you do that?”

Parse runs a hand through his hair. “I dunno! We were gonna go out but apparently Scrappy's mom is gluten free and she doesn't trust restaurants and the guys were all like, 'you spend so much time with that dude, haven't you learned how to cook?’ and I was like, duh, of course, I'm not an idiot.”

“But you are an idiot,” Bitty says. “You've learned nothing.”

Parse says, “I know.”

“I think you might be  _ worse _ at cooking than when we started.”

_ “I know!” _

Bitty puts the phone down for a second and looks up at the ceiling for salvation. Finding none, he picks up the phone again and says, “Do literally everything I say.”

Parse's shoulders sink away from his ears.

 

~*~

 

The Friday after Parse's cooking fiasco, Bitty is scribbling recipe ideas down in a notebook when his phone buzzes from somewhere under the comforter. He fishes it out, looks at the name on the notification, and immediately gets up to take a shower.

It doesn't make him feel any better and the fucking phone is still waiting for him when he gets out and shivers in the AC.

**_YOU KNOW BETTER (5:57 PM):_ ** _ Uh. Hi. The guys invited me over tonight. I hope that's okay. _

Bitty throws on a random shirt and grabs a pair of jeans off the ground.

**_Bitty (6:24 PM):_ ** _ Oh haha of course!! I probably won't be home anyway I have a date actually? :) _

Bitty grabs a belt off the dresser and glares at Señor Bun, who is staring at him with those tiny little button eyes in a tone he does not care for  _ at all.  _

“Don't give me that look,” Bitty says. “What am I supposed to do?”

Being a mature adult clearly isn't an option. He's talking to a stuffed animal.

**_YOU KNOW BETTER (6:26 PM):_ ** _ Oh. Okay. I hope you have fun. _

**_Bitty (6:30 PM):_ ** _ I'm sure I will :)  _

 

~*~

 

Bitty takes the train to the park and drinks bubble tea alone, and does not have any fun. He watches people walk their dogs and kids play on the playground until the moon rises and he's alone with his thoughts and the occasional night jogger.

Lardo, his only real friend, texts him every hour with an update.

At least he's streaming with Parse later tonight. He doodles another lattice design in his notebook and kicks at the mulch on the ground. He migrated over to the swing set after all the kids left, but he doesn't have it in him to actually use it.

All of a sudden, though, it's already 10 and Bitty  _ still  _ hasn't gotten the all-clear to head home. If he can't take the next train, he'll be late for the stream.

**_Bitty (10:10 PM):_ ** _ Has Jack left yet?? _

**_Lardo (10:12 PM):_ ** _ uhh bad news _

**_Lardo (10:12 PM):_ ** _ Jack may or may not be crashing on our couch tonight? You should just come home bro _

Bitty tosses his phone on the ground and grabs the swing with both hands, leaning himself all the way back so he's parallel to the ground and staring up at the sky. He thinks about letting go and letting himself slither to the ground like a crumpled noodle, but that may be a touch dramatic.

Instead, he calls Parse.

“What's up?” Parse answers. “I'm live.”

Bitty closes his eyes, flexing his feet against the ground. “Um, sorry, had to make sure I caught you. I can't make the stream tonight? Sorry, Parsnips. See you—”

“Hang on,” Parse says. There's a pause, then, “Okay, I'm muted. What's wrong?”

Bitty blinks. “Um, nothing, I just—”

“C'mon, Checkie.” Parse's voice is wheedling, but softer than his normal obnoxious way. “I know you.”

_ You really don't,  _ Bitty thinks. He looks over at the nearest street lamp, bright enough to make his eyes water. “It's not a big deal. I mean, um, my friends are still friends with my ex-boyfriend and I lied to him about bein’ on a date and now I can't go home because he's sleeping on our couch and so I can't stream tonight, it's really fine though, I'm sorry!”

“That's fucked up,” Parse says.

Bitty bristles. “I said I'm sorry!”

“No—what?” Bitty can feel Parse's frown through the phone. “I meant that your friends just, like, invite your ex over to sleep in your apartment.”

“Oh.” Bitty chews on his bottom lip. “Um, I mean, it ain't—it's not their fault, um, they were actually his friends first? So?”

Parse is quiet.

Bitty laughs. “Sorry, I don't know why we're talking about this. It's really all fine, I'm just bein’ a baby about it. I'll go home and we can—”

“You know,” Parse says. “If you need a place to hide out, you can always come to the house.”

Bitty huffs out another laugh.

“Too weird?” Parse asks. “I promise my teammates don't bite.”

Bitty rolls his eyes. “Wait, were you serious? I can't just hop on a plane to wherever you live, Parse, I have a  _ job.” _

Silence. Again.

Bitty looks around nervously, out of habit, but there's no one there. The breeze brushes against his cheeks.

Slowly, Parse says, “I live in Boston. Did you seriously not—wow. Okay, of course not.”

_ “What?” _ Bitty asks warily, half-convinced Parse is chirping him. “How should I know—”

“I tweeted about going to TD Garden last week,” Parse tells him. His tone is unreadable and Bitty's stomach suddenly hurts, somewhere deep and small. “Do you just not, like, fucking care about me at all?”

Bitty closes his eyes and digs his heels into the ground, feeling the fresh summer mulch poking at his ankles. What's there to say?

_ I just learned how to be alone again. I avoid your Twitter because it reminds me that I could want something I can't have. You have the prettiest voice. _

“We're not friends,” Bitty says. His throat catches around it. “I—I'm sorry, I didn't—”

“We could be,” Parse interrupts. “Friends.”

_ I can't,  _ Bitty begs.  _ I can't give you any more.  _

“Kent, I don't—”

“Look, I know I'm kind of an asshole, but I've got  _ many _ redeeming qualities,” Parse insists light-heartedly, but also not that way at all.

Bitty covers his mouth with a palm and bites down.

“Bitty,” Parse asks, and gets no answer. He hesitates, then ventures, “Uh, for example, I'm fucking hilarious. Like, c'mon, you know this.”

Bitty jerks his teeth free and manages, “You're not half as funny as you think you are, sweetheart.”

“But, see, that's the thing!” Parse's voice picks up again, and Bitty can picture him gesturing broadly at the computer.  _ (Lord,  _ Bitty hopes he's not still at the computer). “I'm, uh—that rooster, right? Who thinks the sun comes up for him? So half as funny is still pretty good.”

Bitty snort-laughs. “I thought I told you not to try and talk Southern anymore.”

Parse ignores him and continues, “I'm a pretty good listener, too. And, uh, I've got an ex-girlfriend I still get  _ mega  _ fucking sad about sometimes, so we've got that in common—and I learned in therapy that it's, like, easier to be friends with people who are like you.”

“What else've you learned in therapy?” Bitty asks, maybe without meaning to, except that he feels like he's drowning and there's suddenly so much air.

“That you can be really fucking scared,” Parse answers softly, “and do it anyway.”

Bitty slides off the swing and sits down in the mulch and hugs his knees to his chest and says, “You wouldn't say that if you knew what I was afraid of.”

“Hey, Checkie,” Parse says, like maybe he didn't hear. “Be my friend.”

Bitty wipes at his face with the back of a hand, knuckles digging into the bone of his cheek, and gives.

 

~*~

 

Kent Parson lives in a triple-decker in Davis Square with his four Devil Aces teammates, plus the semi-permanent sixth resident in Swoops’ fiance. They have seven bedrooms and two kitchens, and none of them (except Shani, the fiance, who's a nurse) have jobs.

Bitty takes the redline to get there and glares up at the house on principle. 

Parse must have been watching for him, maybe because it's almost midnight and Bitty is just standing around alone like a fool, because he walks outside and catches Bitty staring.

“Nice, right?” he asks, hands shoved in his pockets like he isn't preening.

Bitty sniffs and chirps, “Well, it's no Georgia mansion.”

“Thank fuck,” Parse says. He slings an arm around Bitty's shoulders and steers him up the steps. “I hate the South. No offense.”

Bitty turns his face into the crook of Kent's neck and hugs him there on the porch, breathing in the faint smell of Old Spice, sighing very quietly. Like he won't regret it in the morning.

Parse slides a hand up his back, fingers splaying flat to fit under the nearly-empty drawstring Bitty had brought with him.

“None taken,” Bitty says belatedly, clearing his throat. He pulls away and Parse's fingertips stick against the soft cotton for one entire second, and the thought Bitty should have had thirty minutes ago when he was still barely-crying on a child's swing set creeps in.

_ This is a terrible idea. _

 

~*~

 

Bitty wakes up to the sound of feet pounding down a staircase, stretching out on the air mattress with a yawn. He looks over at the bed to see if Parse is awake, and makes eye contact.

“Oh,” Bitty says. He feels his face heating up under the intensity of Parse's smirk. “Um, good morning?”

“You drool,” Parse says delightedly.

Bitty throws the pillow at him.

 

~*~

 

“You know,” Parse says around a mouthful of eggs (he cracked them all himself, so he can't say Bitty never taught him anything). “Since you're here, we could do a kick-ass stream.”

Bitty raises an eyebrow. “It's Saturday morning. Isn't that prime Layers time?”

“Who says we aren't playing Layers?” Parse asks.

The realization dawns suddenly. “No,” says Bitty. “Absolutely not.”

 

~*~

 

“Why can't I move with the arrow keys?” Bitty whines. “This is so weird!”

Parse leans across Bitty to grab the mouse, his hand covering Bitty's own. “'Cause you want your dominant hand to aim, Checkie.”

Bitty sticks his tongue out at him while he's busy using the mouse to toy with settings, but Parse sees it on the stream monitor and blows a raspberry back.

_ “Ew!”  _ Bitty tugs his hand free and wipes at his face. “You're the worst.”

“Hey, Jorge, good to see ya!” Parse says cheerfully. Bitty looks over at the chat, but whatever comment he's responding to is already off the screen. “Yup, I'm teaching Checkie here how to play. Consider it payback for the past month and a half.”

Bitty crosses his arms in a huff.  _ “Payback.  _ I taught you valuable life skills.”

Parse says, “And I'm returning the favor, duh.”

“This is  _ not _ a life skill,” Bitty argues. He grabs the mouse back from Parse when the character select comes up. “Ooh, I wanna be that freaky angel thing.”

Parse rolls his chair back over to his own computer; he set Bitty up on the main system and pulled out an old gaming laptop to use for himself.

“Okay, that puts you in mid-lane,” he says. “Your job is gonna be to stay where you are and not die. When we get to later in the game, you're gonna use those abilities at the bottom to do a bunch of damage and kill shit.”

“Great,” Bitty says. “Simple enough.”

Parse clicks on a demon character, which is different than what he normally plays.

Bitty asks, “Okay, not to tell you how to do your job, but shouldn't you pick an elf?”

“I'm gonna play jungle instead of ADC,” Parse explains, “and babysit the fuck out of you. Plus, matchmaking is gonna put us with other newbies since your account is brand new, and me playing my best characters would just be insult to injury—yeah, yeah, laugh it up, chat. I know how to play jungle.”

All the players pick their characters and the match starts. The item shop opens up and Bitty stares, wide-eyed, at all the options.

“Kent!” He squeaks. “A little help?”

Parse is already running away from their base. “Get the Holy Amulet, the first upgrade on Wanderer's Boots, and spend the rest on Mana and Health potions. Oh, and upgrade your second ability first.”

Bitty finds the items using the search function and then runs out of the base. He runs towards the middle lane, which is where Parse told him to go and stay. He hides behind his team's friendly demon minions and shoots glowing balls of light at the enemy minions.

There's another angel in the lane facing him, and they keep trying to hit him with their abilities.

“Ugh! Leave me alone!” Bitty tells the computer. “I don't wanna fight you!”

Parse laughs and elbows Bitty on the arm. On screen, his character runs into Bitty's lane and attacks the enemy player. Bitty panics and runs away, and the other angel runs away towards their base.

“Nice,” Parse says. “Sorry, chat, Checkie's not gonna see most of your questions—he's a little busy. I'll answer anything you want, though.”

Just then, though, someone donates and the customary robot-lady says, “Hi what can I bake that's easy and will impress my GF”

Bitty runs and hides under his staircase, which will apparently shoot missiles at enemy players if they attack him.

“Well, um—” he narrows his eyes. “Did that say your name is ‘puthydestroyer69?’”

Parse laughs.

Bitty clears his throat. “Well! In any case, I'm—” Shit. He covers his mic and whispers to Parse, “Can I say that I'm gay here?”

Parse raises an eyebrow at him. “Uh, yeah?”

“I'm gay as a jaybird, so I don't know much about seducing women,” Bitty says. “But I'm pretty sure just about anyone would like a pan of brownies with their favorite candy mixed in. You can even use brownie mix!”

“How come  _ I  _ don't get to use brownie mix?” Parse complains. 

Bitty ignores him. “I might also recommend changing your name to something like 'respectswomen123,’ but that's just my opinion.”

“Are jaybirds known for being gay?” Parse asks. “Like, are they one of those animal species that—”

“Stay in your lane, hun,” Bitty interrupts evenly.

Parse flashes a grin at the camera. “I don't have a lane. That's why I'm the jungler.”

Bitty pretends he doesn't know enough about this game to understand the joke.

 

~*~

 

Bitty does eventually go home, and finds the entire apartment waiting for him in the living room because he is destined to never get any rest in his entire life.

“Hey, Bitty,” Holster asks, sing-song, “how was your date?”

Bitty kicks out of his shoes warily. “Um, fine, thanks?”

“You're home pretty late,” Ransom points out. He's wearing a shit-eating grin, and all Bitty wants to do is change out of these stupid clothes and take a shower.

Shitty says, “Guys, leave it alone.”

“It was...a good date,” Bitty hedges. “See y'all—”

“Hey, Bitty,” Holster repeats. “Did you know I have Parse's stream on email notification?”

Fuck. Bitty closes his eyes. “Oh, that's nice?”

“Pretty cute of your new man to teach you how to play his game.” Bitty looks over at Ransom, gaping. “Maybe, like, a little cliche?”

Bitty squeaks,  _ “What?  _ I'm not—”

Shitty interrupts, “Guys, if he doesn't wanna talk about—”

“I'm not dating  _ Parse!”  _ Bitty insists. He throws his hands up in the air. “Oh my God, I—I just went over there after the—the date!”

Holster raises his eyebrows. “You walk-of-shamed from your date to Parse's house to play videogames at 9 AM on a Saturday?”

Bitty is going to die. “Um, no, I—I didn't sleep with my date? It was, um—well, I said it was nice, but I just—went to hang out with Parse afterwards and crashed there?”

“Cool, cool,” Holster says. “What's your date's name?”

Bitty grips the straps on his bag tighter and offers, “Um, Ethan?”

Holster asks, “And where'd you meet  _ Ethan?” _

“Tinder?” Bitty ventures, wincing. 

“You  _ hate  _ Tinder!” Holster accuses.

“Oh my  _ God,”  _ Bitty pleads. “Just let me rest, Adam, it's been—”

“Bits,” Ransom says. “Just admit it—you're banging the most popular streamer in America and now you have to get us all free—”

“There's no  _ date, _ okay?” Bitty admits, his voice cracking humiliatingly. He can feel their eyes all on him, probably some mix of shock and concern, but he can't even look at Lardo and she  _ knew. _

Shitty says gently, “Bits, what—”

Bitty tells the coffee table, “I lied to Jack because I didn't want to see him, and I hid at Kent's to cover it up. Are you all happy?”

“No,” Holster says, but Bitty's already gone.

He flees to his bedroom and locks the door behind him, sinking to the floor at the foot of his bed. He's  _ not  _ going to cry. He's not.

 

~*~

 

Time passes. Bitty's not sure how much, but he pulls up Parse's stream and watches it without saying anything so he won't be a disturbance.

He thinks Parse would notice something's wrong. He doesn't examine why that is, or why it makes him feel better to hear Parse laughing.

There's a knock at the door, then, and Bitty turns down the volume on his phone but doesn't turn it off. 

“Bits?” Holster asks through the door. “Can we come in?”

Bitty sniffs. “Not without an apology you can't, Adam Birkholtz.”

“Dude, we're sorry,” Ransom insists. “We didn't—like, we weren't trying to upset you, obviously? We thought it'd be like a fun thing?”

Bitty closes his eyes.

Holster continues, “Like, we all saw how hard splitting with Jack hit you, and it's been over a year, bro. And you're spending all this time with Parse, and he's always been kinda loose with his sexuality anyway, and we thought—man, we just wanna see you happy.”

“I  _ am  _ happy,” Bitty insists. He laughs wetly. “I mean, most of the time. But I'm not—I'm not upset about bein’ single.”

Shitty asks, “Then why'd you lie to Jack?”

Bitty shrugs and stares at the little thumbnail of Parse's face. “I...don't know. I guess I panicked and I just—I was afraid of seeing him and it being weird.”

“Sorry for inviting him over without asking,” Ransom says. “I guess we just miss the good ole days, you know?”

“Me too,” Bitty admits, smiling sadly, his voice going a little soft. “I...feel like it's my fault they're gone.”

Holster asks, “Bro, can we come in now?” and Bitty gets up to unlock the door.

They all pile into the room immediately, Ransom and Holster smushing Bitty from either side and Shitty throwing himself dramatically onto the bed. Lardo follows after, plopping herself down on Bitty's thigh.

“It's no one's fault,” she tells him, speaking up for the first time. “Time just...happens.”

“I can't be in the same room with our best friend,” Bitty points out dryly. “It's a little bit my fault.” 

Ransom says, “Nah, bro. Just, maybe next time we'll plan it better?”

Bitty nods, flipping his phone around in his hands. “Thanks. Um, y'all, I—”

Of course, that's the moment something ridiculous must happen on stream, and Parse starts yelling excitedly—loud enough for everyone in the room to hear even with the volume turned down.

Bitty mutes his phone and chucks it onto his laundry pile sheepishly, but they're all already staring at him.

“So,” Shitty says, dangling his head over the edge of the bed so his face is right next to Bitty's. “Now that we've established that we all need to respect your boundaries and open a clear line of communication—are you  _ sure _ there's nothing going on with this guy?”

“Get  _ out.” _

 

~*~

 

Friday nights become “teach Bitty how to play video games” day. Parse offers him half of the donation profits while he's on stream, but that's not the point.

They're friends.

 

~*~

 

Bitty's just gotten home from his Thursday evening shift at the coffee shop and is contemplating the merits of a 9 PM nap when his phone buzzes with a Twitter notification.

**_@da_maximumswoop [9:12 PM]:_ ** _ Hey not to be super weird or anything but Kent is having a super rough day and I think you're the one who should cheer him up _

Bitty frowns and clicks over to his texts with Parse. They've been sparse today, but Bitty didn't think much of it, being at work.

**_@omgcheckplease [9:14 PM]:_ ** _ Um, sure, I'll try? But why me? _

Bitty shucks out of his uniform and grabs a deodorant wipe from his dresser. 

**_@da_maximumswoop [9:17 PM]:_ ** _ Process of elimination mostly. We even sent Shani in and he swerved on her too. You know how he gets sometimes _

So much for Bitty's evening nap. That's fine, though. He has a favor or two to return in this department.

**_@omgcheckplease [9:18 PM]:_ ** _ I'm flattered [eye roll emoji] But yeah, of course I'll reach out. Thanks. _

**_@da_maximumswoop [9:18 PM]:_ ** _ He cares about you.  _

Bitty lets that one sit. He pulls out a new outfit and hops into his jeans one-handed, texting Parse with the other.

**_Bitty (9:21 PM):_ ** _ Hey!! What are you up to tonight? Wanna hang out? :) _

**_Parse (9:21 PM):_ ** _ Being manipulated by my friends apparently _

**_Parse (9:22 PM):_ ** _ [An address for a bar in Davis Square] _

Bitty rolls his eyes fondly as he slips into his cardigan.

 

~*~

 

Parse is sitting at the bar when Bitty gets there, flirting with a woman with a charming smirk on his face, one forearm braced against the table as he leans towards her. 

Bitty laughs quietly to himself, sidling up on Parse's other side and waving to get their attention. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” he says, smiling sweetly at the woman, “but did you know that Kent is  _ very  _ famous?”

Parse laughs and shoves playfully at Bitty's arm without looking away from the woman. “We've been over that part, yeah. Kris here isn't impressed, though.”

“No one is, sweetheart,” Bitty tells him. “Video games are stupid.”

Kris laughs and takes a sip of her drink. “Well, you boys have fun. Bye!”

She slips off her stool and wanders back to a table where her friends are all sitting, and Bitty says, “Oh, sorry, did I…?”

“Nah.” Parse turns to face Bitty fully and his entire face changes—the wrinkles around his eyes, the tilt of his smirk. “Told her I was waiting for someone. What's up, Bits?”

“Oh, honey,” Bitty says instead. He touches Kent's elbow, fingers squeezing lightly. “What's wrong?”

Parse huffs out a laugh and takes a swig of his beer, his Adam's apple bobbing harshly. “Ouch. Am I that transparent?”

Bitty gently says, “I think you want to be,” and turns to the bartender and orders a vodka cranberry.

“My ex-girlfriend got engaged,” Parse says. He's peeling the label off his beer bottle a little at a time while he talks. “Which is a stupid thing to be fucked up over.”

Bitty squeezes the lime wedge into his drink, wincing when the juice hits a cut on his finger. “No it isn't. How'd you find out?”

“On stream.” Parse laughs. “Fuck me, right?”

“That  _ sucks,”  _ Bitty agrees, glancing over at Parse's face before turning back to his drink. “Um, are you still...I mean, um, were you hoping you'd…?”

Parse peels another strip of his label off. “Not really. I mean, we broke up like three years ago and Jesus Christ, we were like,  _ so  _ fucking bad for each other—at least, back then.”

Bitty hums and takes a sip of his drink.

“We were young and just, so fucking mentally ill,” Parse says. He turns restlessly, leaning against the bar and staring out across the room. “But it was so fucking good, Bits, when it was good.”

Bitty closes his eyes and does not think about Jack Zimmermann covered in flour, or shopping for curtains in Ikea, or unpacking boxes he never quite moved.

“I know a little about that,” he says, and Parse holds his beer out for a toast and Bitty drinks to it.

Parse rests the hand holding his beer on the bar, close enough for the condensation to soak into Bitty's sleeve. “I guess at first I thought, like, I'd go to therapy and get fixed and we'd get back together.”

“Sure,” Bitty agrees.

“But it turns out when your dad offs himself and you get an abusive step-dad that you, like, keep moving around to avoid, and you didn't learn how to be a person in the first place they can't just fix you,” Parse says. “And it stopped being about Annie.”

Bitty wants to look at his face and finds he can't manage it. He stares at the counter instead, brushing their knuckles together and feeling them slot into place.

“Sorry.” Parse laughs. “I'm still working on this thing where you share a normal amount of information with someone.”

Bitty blurts, “My parents stopped touching me.”

Parse turns, half-ways, and then maybe thinks better of it.

“I don't think they even realize it,” Bitty explains. He feels the tears welling up and tries to steady his voice. “But I started to notice…after I came out. And now I can't, um? I can't remember the last time she hugged me?”

Parse whispers, “Jesus.”

“There,” Bitty says firmly. He wipes at his eyes and smiles at Parse with encouragement, even if his voice still shakes. “Normal amount of information.”

Parse shakes his head and smiles back, eyes still fixed on the crowded room. He says, “I guess...I'm jealous, but not, like, of her. Of, I mean—like, she pulled herself out of our trainwreck and now she's engaged and happy or whatever, and I just—maybe I'll never get there.”

_ Get there with me,  _ Bitty thinks, without permission, without a feeling behind it besides the deep, itching ache of wanting to cry except it's in his stomach instead of behind his eyes.  _ Please.  _ He lifts his hand away and hides his face behind a drink.

“You'll get there, honey,” he promises instead, forcing it out and forcing the look on his face when he finally makes eye contact with Parse. “You're working so hard.”

Parse's eyes are glowing, under the sadness. Bitty can see the edge of the person he's becoming, or maybe the one he's unburying, and he wants to tug on it and be the first set of fingerprint smudges on the polished glass.

_ This can't be what you want,  _ he tells himself.  _ Please. _

It is, of course. And it'll never fit in the box again. It'll be a thing he lives with and keeps the corners tidy of, and he'll make being Parse's friend enough.

“Damn, Checkie,” Parse says on an exhale. He shakes his head and looks back out towards the crowd. “Where'd I find you?”

“YouTube,” Bitty says. “You don't remember?”

 

~*~

 

They stay at the bar for a while longer, and then Parse somehow, with the help of Bitty's three vodka cranberries, wheedles him into going dancing.

 

(“I have  _ work  _ in the morning,” Bitty insists.

Parse rests his cheek on the bar and looks up at him with big, earnest eyes. His lip even quivers. “But Checkie, I'm  _ sad.” _

Bitty sighs and hangs his head, pretending he doesn't see Parse fist-pump, then pulls out his phone to text his manager. “Oh, no, I've gotten food poisoning.”)

 

This club is louder than the last place, but Bitty and Parse are in the exact same spot—leaning up against the bar, barely touching, scanning the crowd.

It makes Bitty feel like he's in a movie, like this is the end of a montage and the music will fade out and it will just be the two of them, talking.

Instead, Parse leans over and shouts right into Bitty's ear and Bitty still has to ask him to say it again.

“I said,” Parse repeats, his forearm brushing against Bitty's back when he moves even closer, “‘fuck, if you don't dance with that guy, I will.’”

“Oh,” Bitty says faintly. “Um, which one?”

Parse slings an arm around Bitty's shoulders and points, gently steering him in the right direction. “Look at those  _ cheekbones.” _

Bitty rocks onto the balls of his feet and nearly loses his balance, and presses his mouth against Parse's ear to say, “He looks like my ex.”

“He’s hideous,” Parse answers. “Let's go get milkshakes.”

 

~*~

 

They end up at a 24-hour diner back down the road, towards Parse's house. There's jukebox music playing faintly in the background and Bitty's ears are still ringing.

“Um,” Bitty says. They're in a booth and Parse is reclined across from him, plucking cheese fries from their shared pile without moving out of his sprawl. 

Parse hums and holds out his milkshake in offering.

Bitty takes the milkshake and swirls the straw around; it's got peanut M&Ms in it. He fishes one out with the straw and crunches down on it.

“What's up?” Parse asks him, wiping his hands on a napkin.

Bitty works up the nerve on the basis that he's still decently drunk and it's not even the most invasive thing they've talked about tonight. “Um, sorry, are you…?”

“Bi?” Parse offers. He grabs Bitty's milkshake and steals a brownie bite out with his fingers. “Mhm. Thought you'd never notice.”

Bitty snorts. “I didn't know you were makin’ a game out of it.”

Parse shrugs at him and makes grabby hands at his drink. “It’s whatever.”

“Um.” Bitty trades milkshakes back. “Are you...out? On stream?”

“Ehh,” Parse answers with a  _ so-so  _ wave of his hand. “Open secret? I mean, my top Twitter post is still of me in full drag that my girl—that Annie did me up in, so.”

Bitty sits up a little straighter. “Oh, um. Sorry, I guess I just—you sort of hear about gaming as, um…”

“Angry straight white boy club?” Parse raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Bitty answers dryly. “Pretty much.”

Parse flashes a toothy grin. “Kinda like hockey?”

Bitty kicks his shin.

“Seriously, though, it's, uh—I mean, every game kinda has its culture?” Parse explains. He kicks Bitty back and hooks their ankles together. “But Layers is pretty okay. There's some out players on other teams.”

Bitty narrows his eyes and tries half-heartedly to tug his foot free. He catches Parse smirking at him and gives it up. “I didn't realize.”

“Yeah.” Parse frees Bitty and slumps further in the booth, suddenly looking away again. His fingers find the straw wrapper and start fiddling with it absentmindedly. “I guess I've got a lot of followers who it'd mean a lot to, if I came out. I just...haven't.”

“You know you don't owe it to anyone,” Bitty tells him gently. “You didn't to me.”

Parse turns his head, resting his cheek against the booth, and says, “And yet, you still asked.”

“Yeah,” Bitty says, and with all the wanting taking up space there's nothing in him to spare towards putting together an apology. “I did.”

 

~*~

 

Bitty walks Parse home and leans against the banister on the porch, watching Parse's hands fumble with the keys and tracing his eyes over the veins on his knuckles in the dim light.

“Uh, you can crash here again if you want, obviously,” Parse offers, not looking up.

“Obviously,” Bitty repeats, slipping past him into the house with a chirpy hip-nudge. “Last train was two hours ago.”

Parse shuts the door behind them. “I know.”

Bitty toes out of his shoes and shivers in the sudden AC. The house is dark on the first floor, but he can hear people awake, maybe in the second story living room. He turns to look at Parse and finds him leaning against the door, face in deep shadow except for the faint second-hand glow of a streetlight catching on one temple.

“I don't wanna go up there,” Bitty says.

He hears Parse shift but can't tell how, except that there are almost fingers on his wrist. “Yeah?”

Bitty closes his eyes and tries to part his lips to say something, or anything, maybe, has to wet them with his tongue and swallow down the taste first. “I—”

The upstairs hallway light switches on and there's the sound of stomping feet and the fainter thump of Parse pressing both shoulders against the front door, and Bitty is staring too wide-eyed at the stretch of newly illuminated freckles along Parse's cheek.

“Uh, hey,” Swoops says from the top of the stairs. He's resting his hand on the railing with Scrappy standing too close to him, like they stopped suddenly on the verge of coming down. “You guys just get home?”

Parse clears his throat and pushes away from the wall. “Yeah.”

“Popcorn?” Scrappy asks inanely, slipping past Swoops down the stairs and turning towards the kitchen.

Parse looks at Bitty.

Bitty stares past the curve of his throat.

“Think we're crashing,” Parse announces, and shoves his hands in his pockets.

Bitty breathes in through his nose, eyes fluttering shut until he exhales, and follows him up the stairs two steps behind.

The lights are dimmed in the living room and the rest of the house is piled on and around the couch, where  _ High School Musical 2  _ is queued up on Netflix. It makes Bitty nostalgic for the Haus, peppermint schnapps poured into watery hot chocolate and—

_ You know better. _

“Checkie,” Parse says softly. Bitty waits for the hand on his back, steering him somewhere he's supposed to be. It doesn't come. “You wanna stay?”

Bitty looks up at him and blinks the memory away like clearing a fog. “No, I, um—that's…alright.”

Parse smirks at him, hands still in his pockets. Is that where they always are? “Then c'mon.”

Bitty follows him up the second flight of stairs and into his bedroom, where Parse switches on the desk lamp and sits down in the computer chair. The air mattress is still where Bitty left it the week before, and the week before that, and at some point Parse tossed a fresh set of sleep clothes over the pillow.

“Is it, um, colder in here than normal?” Bitty asks, rubbing at his arms.

Parse laughs. “Scrappy's been whining about the heat for weeks. I bet the fucker changed the thermostat when Jeff wasn't looking.”

“Oh,” Bitty says, and then, “Oh, no, you don't have to—” when Parse yanks his comforter off the bed and chucks it at the air mattress.

Parse waves him off and shrugs out of his flannel, rolling his chair over to the dresser. “‘S’fine. I’ll get under the sheet.”

Bitty walks over to the mattress and insists, “At least let me give you the other blanket.”

“Nope.” Parse catches the blanket when Bitty throws it and tosses it back; it hits Bitty in the face. Asshole. “I'm not even cold.”

Bitty pulls the blanket off his head and marches it over to Parse, shoving it against his chest and huffing when Parse tries to hand it back. “You have  _ goosebumps!” _

“Do not,” Parse retorts, like a  _ child,  _ and he moves to knock Bitty's hand away when he tries to pay him back for the blanket to the face, but he grabs it when Bitty tries to dodge him, and Bitty freezes with his arm lifted in the air and Parse's fingers around his wrist.

Parse is laughing softly, his hair mussed from where Bitty managed to ruffle it, and the sound dies off slowly when he catches the half of Bitty's face he can see over the blanket held between them.

“We could, uh,” Parse says, smirking, but not with his eyes. “We could share it.”

“Yeah,” Bitty says. He lowers his arm slowly, the blanket clenched in trembling fingers and then suddenly on the ground with his palm open and empty. “Okay.”

Parse slides past Bitty and grabs the blanket off the floor as he does, draping it on one corner of the bed before collecting Bitty's things from the air mattress.

Bitty kicks the door shut and takes the clothes when Parse hands them over, their fingers brushing, and Parse says, “Oh, uh, I actually—yeah,” and pulls the door back open to slip into the bathroom down the hall.

_ God. _

Bitty changes out of his clothes and then sets to making the bed. He closes his eyes and lingers there.  _ God, god. _

Parse comes back when Bitty's fluffing the pillows for the third time to have something to do with his hands. His face is still red from his ridiculous skincare routine (Lord, how did Bitty think maybe he was straight?) and he's dressed in what may or may not be a women's pajama shirt, given that it's powder pink and covered in cats with little bows in their hair.

Smirking, Parse asks, “Did the pillow do something to you, or?”

Bitty whacks him with said pillow and he jumps away with a laugh, darting over to the desk to switch off the light without warning.

The sudden darkness sends a shiver up Bitty's spine. He takes a breath and waits for the sound of the bed creaking as Parse crawls onto it, and asks, “Um, what side do you—”

“Whatever you want,” Parse cuts in, then chirps, “Wait, not that side,” when Bitty replaces the missing pillow and starts to burrow under the covers.

“You're  _ impossible,”  _ Bitty tells him, and refuses to move.

Parse laughs gets under the covers too. “You like it.”

Bitty rolls onto his side, facing Parse in the dark. His eyes are starting to adjust and he can see the faint glint in Parse's eyes, the suggestion of a smile.

“Hey,” Parse says, maybe a little roughly.

“Um, hi,” Bitty answers, his voice going small and the sound of his heart pounding making up the difference, suddenly self-conscious about his breath and the entire space that his body takes.

Parse is just staring at him, and his eyes flick down, and Bitty digs his teeth into his bottom lip to give him something worth looking at.

_ God.  _ There's no way this is platonic. Not the way Parse is staring, not the way he held Bitty's wrist. He has to want this like Bitty does.

Right?

Parse licks his lips, and Bitty thinks about laughing and touching and crying in the nicest kitchen he's ever seen the last time he ever set foot in it. 

_ You know better. _

Bitty rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling.

Parse laughs, so softly, and turns away too. Like there's a joke, but Bitty's not sure which part. He closes his eyes and waits to find it funny.

 

~*~

 

Parse pokes Bitty in the ribs and whispers, “Hey, wanna go running?”

Bitty swats him away with a flailing arm, and mumbles, “Who'm I look?” into the pillow, whatever he meant to say jumbling on the way out.

He falls back asleep to Parse laughing.

 

~*~

 

Bitty wakes up the second time when Parse gets back from a shower, a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair dripping water onto the floor.

“Mm,” Bitty says.

Parse laughs and starts digging through his dresser. “Hey, sleeping beauty.”

“We drank  _ so much,”  _ Bitty complains, rolling over to glare at him directly. “How are you— _ you _ —right now?”

“The fans await, baby,” Parse answers. He shucks the towel and Bitty pointedly rolls onto his back to stare at the ceiling. “Also, apparently you're a lightweight? Cute.”

Bitty huffs. “Four drinks is a  _ perfectly _ respectable soft limit.”

Parse wanders back out of the bedroom with a mock salute, still shirtless and wearing a pair of low-slinging sweatpants that say fucking  _ Juicy _ on his ass—which he wiggles in the doorway.

“Who  _ are _ you?” Bitty shouts after him.

He gets no answer, save for the tapping of knuckles on the wall, and settles for checking his phone. The apartment group chat has blown up overnight—speculating about his whereabouts. 

**_Holster (1:15 AM):_ ** _ Yo bits are you coming home _

**_Holster (1:58 AM):_ ** _ Bittyyyyyyy _

**_Ransom (2:30 AM):_ ** _ Taking bets on where Bitty is startinggggggg now _

**_Shitty (2:35 AM):_ ** _ Has anyone checked if he's with Parse? _

**_Holster (2:36 AM):_ ** _ You don't get points for being correct, Shits _

**_Lardo (2:28 AM):_ ** _ Abducted by aliens _

**_Ransom (2:28 AM):_ ** _ THAT'S more like it _

It goes on like that for a while.

**_Bitty (10:09 AM):_ ** _ Don't you all have JOBS?? _

Parse wanders back into the room with his hair perfectly blow-dried and tousled. “Time to get to work.”

“That's actually a question I have,” Bitty says.

**_Shitty (10:09 AM):_ ** _ Uhh so do you my good sir AND YET my coffee was served to me by a doe-eyed undergrad _

**_Holster (10:10 AM):_ ** _ J'accuse!! _

“What's up?” Parse asks. He boots up his computer and spins around in his chair.

“Sorry,” Bitty says, “one second.”

**_Bitty (10:11 AM):_ ** _ I AM VERY SICK WITH FOOD POISONING GOODBYE _

That taken care of, Bitty locks his phone and tosses it onto Parse's abandoned pillow before glancing over again.

“Oh, for the love of—” Bitty leans his head against the wall. “Are you planning on puttin’ a shirt on anytime soon?”

Parse reclines further in the chair and puts his hands behind his head. “Aww, baby—you know the answer is no.”

“So your Friday morning viewers appreciate half-naked men on their computer screens?” Bitty asks dryly.

“Some of them.” Parse logs in and then rests his cheek in one hand, fixing his bright gaze on Bitty. “Do you?”

Bitty ignores the blush rising to his cheeks. “Don't flatter yourself, hun.”

Parse spins around again to boot up his software; getting it set up usually takes a few minutes.

“Am I in the shot?” Bitty asks. “I'll move.”

“Why?” Parse is still facing away, but Bitty can see the edge of his grin. “Don't wanna be caught in bed with me?”

Bitty says, “Oh my God.”

Parse wheels around and belts, “I'll keep you my dirty little secret—”

“Does drinking make you  _ stronger?” _

“Don't tell any—” the pillow nails him in the face. “Oh, shit—watch the computer.”

“Sorry!” Bitty yelps, sitting up in bed worriedly.

Parse says, “It's fine,” though, and chucks the pillow back. 

“Anyway,” Bitty says, slinking back under the covers.

“Mhm?”

Bitty taps his fingers against his side. “Does it feel like a job? Or is it still, um, fun, I guess?”

Parse makes a non-committal noise. “Hmm, little of column A, little of column B.”

“I guess I'm... trying to picture it,” Bitty admits. “I mean, I've _ dreamed _ about creating full-time, but people always say how it—I dunno, sucks the joy out?”

Parse hums again, this time more thoughtfully. He leaves the stream fully set-up but still unactive and moves to look in Bitty's direction. “I mean, the thing is—I’m not just getting paid to play videogames all day.”

Bitty cocks his head encouragingly. “Sure, yeah.”

“Maybe this's a weird analogy,” Parse muses. “But I'm basically, like—the gaming community's sugar baby.”

Bitty laughs.

Parse insists, “No, I mean—these people who give me, like, fucking two thousand dollar donations—they're not paying me to be good at some game. They're paying because I make them feel good.  _ Special.” _

“I'm not saying you're _ wrong,”  _ Bitty tells him. He grins back and chirps, “Just, you know, the way you love to peacock around, maybe you missed your callin’ as a real one.”

Parse snickers into his palm and grabs his flannel from the night before. He shrugs back into it, leaving it unbuttoned, and hovers his mouse over the  _ 'go live’  _ button.

Before he presses it, Bitty ventures tentatively, “I've, um, thought about it?”

Parse spins back around in his chair yet  _ again,  _ which is making Bitty queasy just to watch. He's smirking. “Making me your sugar baby?”

Bitty snorts. “On my salary? Hun, you're cheap, but not that cheap.”

“Compliment accepted.” 

“No,” Bitty says. He chews on his bottom lip, but—well, he's never been able to discuss this with anyone, and there's probably some sort of 24-hour window that opens up where you can share ridiculous vulnerable things you won't tell anyone else. “I mean, me being one. Or...something.”

Parse rests his chin in one hand.

Bitty takes that as a sign of encouragement. “I just, you know, hate my stupid barista job and all I wanna do is bake and make stupid videos—”  _ with you,  _ he doesn't say, “—and I can't really afford that right now. But, you know, I think I'd make enough money, if I—if I did sugaring or, um, maybe something else with a camera, on the side?”

“Yeah, for sure,” Parse agrees. He's looking at Bitty thoughtfully, not quite smirking. “You know, I was a camboy for a while.”

Bitty sits up a little straighter and warns, “Don't you chirp me, Kent Parson.”

“I'm not!” Parse insists. He sprawls out further in his chair, like he's counter-pointing Bitty's sudden rigidity. “Dude, you  _ know  _ this equipment is expensive as fuck—don't even ask how much my first PC cost. And I had student loans coming out of my ass.”

The horrible part is that Bitty can see it—Parse's ease around the camera, his ridiculous gym regime that keeps him looking hot but somehow...touchable. Bitty's eyes drift down to the soft folds of his bare stomach, the inviting spread of his knees.

“Are you freaking out on me?” Parse asks, and the answer is yes but only because Bitty wants to crawl under the comforter and die rather than keep fantasizing about— “Bitty?”

“I bet you were good at it,” Bitty says without meaning to, his face turning bright red.

Parse just smirks. “I could teach you, if you wanted.”

“Um!” Bitty splutters. “I—”

“Not like  _ that,”  _ Parse corrects. “I mean, like show you the ropes—Jesus, there's no way to make that sound not-skeevy.”

Bitty remarks dryly, “It's a stable personality trait.”

Parse flips him off. “But seriously—getting set up can be kinda intimidating. Let me shower you with my...expertise.”

“That one was on purpose,” Bitty accuses, his cheeks still hot.

“Maybe.” Parse winks. “I mean, only if you want to, though. If you need money—”

Bitty heads him off. “No.”

“—I can help. The offer for half-donations still stands.”

“I'm not letting my friends bankroll me,” Bitty insists. “I'll let horny strangers on the Internet do that.”

Parse wiggles his eyebrows. “I  _ am  _ a horny stranger on the Internet.”

_ Not anymore. _ But Bitty doesn't say that, because he doesn't know what to call the  _ instead. _

“And besides, we can be friends  _ and,  _ uh, business partners.” Parse gestures at his computer.

“I'll consider it,” Bitty says. “But I will take you up on the...expertise.”

Parse grins. “Fuck yeah. Let me get this stream going, though. Later?”

“Of course,” says Bitty. He leans back against the pillows and closes his eyes, contemplating drifting back to sleep.

“G'morning, Parsnips!” Parse says a few minutes later as viewers start to filter in. Bitty smiles faintly, snuggling himself into the pillows. “Checkie is here, but he's hungover and doesn't love you guys enough to talk to you.”

Bitty raises a middle finger in his vague direction. He hopes it gets on camera.

 

~*~

 

“So, camwhoring,” Parse says that afternoon during the break between his morning and evening streams. They're in the same diner as the night before, which is incredibly weird.

Bitty wrinkles his nose. “D'you have to call it that, specifically?”

Parse shrugs, unrepentant. “People'll call you worse.”

“Maybe,” Bitty allows. He taps his fingers on the table, staring at his second plate of cheese fries in 12 hours. 

“There's a lotta ground to cover.” Parse takes a bite of his burger. “Like, getting with a studio, negotiating your limits—what you'll let people do.”

Bitty snorts.

Parse raises an eyebrow. “You know, you're laughing at me a lot for someone who needs my slutty, slutty wisdom.”

“No, it's just—” Bitty plucks out the goopiest cheese fry and chomps down on it deliberately. “I'm sorta planning on it being the other way around. You know, 'be a good little slut and touch yourself for me,’ that kind of thing.”

“Yes  _ sir,”  _ Parse answers with exaggerated enthusiasm.

Bitty looks over at him cautiously. “Do you think, um, people'll pay for that?”

“Hell,” Parse says, _ “I'd _ pay for that.”

Bitty raises an eyebrow and lowers his voice. “You'd pay me to humiliate you?”

It successfully knocks Parse off-balance—maybe easier than Bitty expected.

“Uh—I mean—not—” Parse stammers. “Not  _ specifically, _ uh—fuck.”

Bitty rests his chin in his hands and waits, smiling pleasantly.

“Jesus.” Parse runs a hand through his hair and recovers with a laugh. “Yeah, people'll pay you.”

Bitty leans back in the booth and crosses his legs, letting Parse off the hook. “Great! What else?”

“Uh, I can get you an in with my old studio,” Parse offers. “But honestly, you've gotta get better at reading chat first.”

Bitty narrows his eyes. “I can  _ read.” _

Parse challenges, “You can't even keep up with my Layers chat. How're you gonna follow conversations with viewers when you're, like, jacking off?”

Bitty crosses his arms and huffs, “I am  _ much _ better at sex than I am at video games.”

“I fucking hope so,” Parse says.

 

~*~

 

“Remember,” Parse warns. “Talking to chat—more important than not-dying.”

Bitty reaches over and smacks him right as the stream goes live.

Parse says, “Wrong camera.”

 

~*~

 

**_Parse (3:42 AM):_ ** _ ur parents are assholes who dnt deserve u btw. shouldve said that b4 _

**_Bitty (5:16 AM):_ ** _ Bless your heart, has that been eating at you all weekend? _

**_Parse (9:55 AM):_ ** _ mb _

**_Bitty (10:02 AM):_ ** _ [eyeroll emoji] _

**_Bitty (10:03 AM):_ ** _...thank you _

 

~*~

 

The thing about getting better at reading Parse's chat is that Bitty actually...reads Parse's chat, and starts to realize just how much people talk about not only him and Parse, but him-and-Parse.

 

**_insertusernamehere:_ ** _ @parse are you and @omgcheckplease dating??? _

**_abbymain99:_ ** _ @insertusernamehere no way _

**_ap3xpr3d:_ ** _ no @insertusernamehere is right _

**_insertusernamehere:_ ** _ THANK U _

**_ap3xpr3d:_ ** _ They're like always together first of all _

**_curiousjorge:_ ** _ you guys know they can SEE you talking about them right?? _

**_ap3xpr3d:_ ** _ second of all parse literally never streams with anyone since annie used to do those makeup tutorials with him _

**_abbymain99:_ ** _ THEYRE JUST FRIENDS _

**_insertusernamehere:_ ** _ @ap3xpr3d EXACTLY. Annie was on stream ALL TJE TOME _

**_curiousjorge:_ ** _ @omgcheckplease my sister is vegan what can I use instead of animal butter to make her cookies? _

**_insertusernamehere:_ ** _ @omgcheckplease @parse whatisthetruth.gif _

 

It's... disconcerting.

 

~*~

 

“D'you ever worry that someone will recognize you?” Bitty asks. He's laying the wrong way around on Parse's bed, his head just barely dangling off the edge, and Parse is sprawled opposite him. “You know, from back in the day.”

Parse shoves a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “Mm, not anymore. Like, I did at first, but actually—my regulars were good people, you know? Protective of me.”

“That's nice,” Bitty tells him. He thinks about the people who have been following his vlog for years—some of them since he was a high schooler. He likes to think they'd be the same.

“Actually, some of them did find me—or, I think so,” Parse muses, and holds up a hand when Bitty opens his mouth. “And I'm not saying who they are so don't fucking ask.”

Bitty chomps down on a chip with a pout.

Parse continues, “I don't think anyone who knows you from 'oh, yeah, that one porn site’ is gonna wanna cop to it either—but I guess you never know.”

“I'm just imagining bein’ that fan,” Bitty says. Parse laughs at him and he lifts his head indignantly. “No, really! Imagine your favorite model quits camming and you're just all glum about it, like, ‘oh, I'll never see Kent and his stupid abs again,’ and then one day  _ bam!  _ You recognize his dumb smirk playing some video game.”

Parse asks, “You know you can just compliment me, right? Like, you don't have to insult me at the same time.”

“I'm aware of how words work, yes.”

“Just checking.” Parse tosses a piece of popcorn at Bitty's face; it bounces off his cheek.

Bitty stares up at the ceiling, biting his lip. He turns to glance at Parse's face and finds it unreadable.

“Does it...feel like normal sex?” he asks. 

“Normal,” Parse repeats, laughing softly. “I mean, it's all about wanting so fucking badly to make the other person—people—happy and basically not caring about how you actually feel at all. So yeah, pretty much.”

Bitty says, “Kent.”

Parse digs his hand into the bowl of popcorn with a thoughtful sigh. “It was... different for me than other people, maybe, 'cause most of the time I actually did partner stuff.”

“Oh?” Bitty asks.

“Yeah. So I...still had someone there, to connect with, I guess.” Parse's gaze stays on the ceiling. He looks like he does when he's somewhere else and Bitty has to reach for him. “But especially solo, it can get...like, it stops being your body.”

“Sounds lonely,” Bitty says. 

Parse turns his head, but he's not really looking. The trick is accepting that your hand will go clean through.

“Nah,” he says. “It's not—it's just not about that. It's about what you give someone, under the view.”

Bitty pushes up onto his forearms. “Do you still, um, find yourself...performing like that?”

Parse laughs and the moment half-slips past. “You know what I do for a living.”

It's a good answer to the wrong question. Or maybe just the answer, but Bitty doesn't want to hear it. He wants to tug Parse in, wants to ask the part that really matters. _Are you real with me?_ _Can you still tell?_

But he sits up with the chip bag in one hand and turns the other way around, so he's reclined against the pillows and their shoulders are nearly touching, and thinks about the unweathered wood on the underside of porch swings and how scraping layers away to the core of a thing is only the comfort of a cleaner story.

Bitty rests his head tentatively on Parse's shoulder and offers up a chip, and Parse takes it between his teeth instead of with his hand like a normal fucking person.

“You're the worst,” Bitty tells him warmly.

Parse holds out the bowl of popcorn.

 

~*~

 

“You're gonna be fine,” Parse tells him.

Bitty rocks back and forth on his heels and insists, “I'm not nervous!”

They're standing outside the studio, which is entirely unassuming in its little spot nestled between a coffee shop and a law office. It somehow makes it worse.

“I told you, my boss is amazing,” Parse says, ignoring him. “And I'll stick around.”

Bitty pulls the door open and walks inside, Parse's steady hand on the small of his back.

There's a woman waiting for them in the little reception area, calmly reading something on her phone with her hair falling out of a messy bun and into her face. She looks up at the sound of the door closing.

“Kent,” she says warmly, rolling herself over from behind a desk. “Look at you!”

Parse leans down to give her a hug. “Hey, Marns.”

“Um, hello,” Bitty says. “I think we spoke on the phone? I'm Bitty.”

“Marnie,” she answers, nodding, and shakes his hand. “It's good to meet you.”

Bitty smiles tentatively, leaning back slightly when Parse touches his shoulder. “Um, likewise.”

Marnie turns back to Parse. “So, this is your friend, huh?”

Parse gives her a look that Bitty can't read. “Uh, yeah.”

“You know,” Marnie says, her voice bright and teasing. “If you ever wanted to come back…”

“Stop,” Parse says, but he's laughing lightly.

Marnie holds up her hands in defeat. “Okay, okay, I'm just saying. We could use more couples.”

Parse says, “I'll think about it.”

Bitty flicks his eyes over—his hands are in his pockets and his cheeks may or may not be turning pink. Interesting.

“So, Bitty,” Marnie says, pulling his attention back. “I'm sure Kent's told you about how I run things here, but I'd still like to discuss specifics with you myself.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Bitty agrees. He glances at Parse. “Um.”

Parse slides a quick hand down Bitty's arm before moving away and saying, “I'll hangout. Marns, you didn't redecorate my fave room, did you?”

Marnie rolls her eyes, sharing a knowing smile with Bitty that he returns. She moves back to the desk and Bitty drags a chair over to sit at an angle from her as she pulls out forms.

“So, Bitty, if you don't mind me asking,” Marnie begins. “How'd you meet Kent?”

Bitty laughs. “Oh, well, that's a funny story! He baked a cake  _ very  _ poorly, so I made fun of him in front over about a thousand people or so.”

Marnie smiles and says, “I think we'll get along great.”

 

~*~

 

They do. Marnie is as wonderful as Parse says, and enjoys chirping him almost as much as Bitty does. And Bitty gets an actual  _ contract  _ with a guaranteed base salary, which is so entirely not how he thought this would work. 

Plus, he comes to the studio to film, so he doesn't have to worry about his roommates barging in or yelling at the TV while he's trying to work.

He's maybe unreasonably excited to get started.

 

~*~

 

The bed is comfortable, which is nice. Bitty is reclined against the pillows and working himself over slowly, through his lace boxer-briefs (an excellent touch, not his own, as much as he'd like to take the credit). 

It was a little odd at first, especially when he moved from the free stream to behind the paywall for the night, but now—

It's not all that different from how Skyping with Jack used to be, when he'd be exhausted on the road and Bitty would put on a little show.  _ You're tired, sweetheart. Let me take care of everything. _

He'd barely have to touch himself, the way Bitty talked him off. 

Bitty's thinking about that now, fighting the nerves. He's  _ good  _ at this. Made for it, the way the chat is talking. The thought is better than his hand on his dick feels.

_ (You didn't tell me it'd feel this addicting, _ he'll tell Parse later, if he doesn't lose the nerve.)

“Y'all are bein’  _ very _ complimentary,” Bitty drawls, leaning into his accent. “And here I was thinkin’ I'd have a naughty slut or two to whip into shape.”

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ reporting 4 duty _

Bitty snorts without entirely meaning to, caught off-guard by the username. Kent wouldn't—

“Would you like that, sweetheart?” he asks, punctuating it with the slow drag of nails catching against lace. “If I whipped you?”

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ id like being ur slut _

If it were Parse—

Bitty purrs, “Aren't you already? You're all fucking filthy, touching yourselves to some stranger on camera. It's embarrassing.”

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ u like it _

“Oh, my.” Bitty tilts his head, stilling his hand except for the slow drag of his thumb along his head. “Blondie thinks he can tell me what I like. You'll need better manners than that around here, sweetheart.”

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ will u make me? _

“I think I may have to,” Bitty muses. “What do the rest of y'all think? Should I teach Blondie some manners?”

The chat responds enthusiastically to that, some people offering suggestions on how and others asking for the same treatment. Bitty smiles sharply.

“Well, then, Blondie, here's the thing about whips,” he says, sitting up a little straighter, the head of his cock just barely slipping above the edge of the lace. “They're so...impersonal, don't you think? Which is lovely, sometimes.”

Bitty pauses, taking the opportunity to slip his underwear down further and stroke himself a few times.

“But when I'm putting a naughty brat like you in your place, I want you to feel  _ exactly  _ who's in charge.” Bitty rests his chin in his hand and looks into the camera, almost bored. “So I'm gonna bend you over my knee, baby. Sound good?”

There's plenty of responses, but Bitty looks for one in particular.

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ fuck fuck _

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ i deserve it _

Bitty clucks his tongue delightedly. “Nuh uh, that's another rule around here—I decide what you deserve. Not you.”

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ yes sir _

That was easy. Bitty hums thoughtfully and goes back to touching himself, this time peeling off his boxer-briefs entirely.

“You know, Blondie,” he drawls, “I think you're all talk—and not much of that either.”

Silence.

Bitty pushes a little. “I think you'll be easy for it, won't you, baby? You'll break easy—prob'ly won't even be much fun.”

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ ill be so fun _

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ however you want iit _

“I don't know, honey,” Bitty teases, smiling knowingly. “I'm hard to please.”

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ im just out of practice  _

_ Since Annie?  _ Bitty wonders. But he doesn't know if—

“Oh?” he asks, shifting his smile into a full grin. “Well, if you stick around we can certainly fix that, sweetheart. Who else needs some practice?”

 

~*~

 

**_Parse (2:22 AM):_ ** _ How was ur first night? _

'Sluttyblondie’ left Bitty a one thousand dollar tip after the stream was over. Bitty's hands are still shaking so badly he's afraid he'll drop his phone again. He wants to ask,  _ Was it you? _ and he's not sure what answer he's more afraid of, and he's all out of nerve.

**_Bitty (2:24 AM):_ ** _ Can I come over? _

**_Parse (2:24 AM):_ ** _ Duh. Doors unlocked  _

 

~*~

 

**_brokefamous:_ ** _ can you tell us something about yourself? _

“Aww, are you a romantic, sweetheart?” Bitty asks. He pauses, fucking himself deeper on the dildo for effect. “You're in the wrong place for that.”

**_brokefamous:_ ** _ please, sir? _

“Hmm.” Bitty quirks his lips. “Well, I suppose I could tell y'all I love to bake. How'd y'all like homemade cookies with your aftercare?”

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ what abt a creampie _

“That's it,” Bitty scolds, fighting back laughter. “No touching yourself for five minutes.”

 

~*~

 

It's definitely Kent.

 

~*~

 

Bitty would say something about it, except—

 

(“Tell me whose you are,” Bitty says.

**_sluttyblondie:_ ** _ yours) _

 

~*~

 

**_Bitty (3:12 PM):_ ** _ SOS [an entire row of crying emojis] _

**_Parse (3:12 PM):_ ** _??? _

**_Bitty (3:13 PM):_ ** _ Jack is coming over and Shitty was supposed to be home but he got held up at school and everyone else is at work and I have to let him into the apartment will you please come over so I'm not alone with him _

**_Parse (3:14 PM):_ ** _ I mean absolutely but u could tell him ur busy and make him like wait at sb _

**_Bitty (3:15 PM):_ ** _ No, I want to do this.  _

**_Bitty (3:15 PM):_ ** _ I just...need a buffer _

**_Parse (3:16 PM):_ ** _ I'll be there in 25 _

 

~*~

 

Jack beats Parse to the apartment and doesn't seem surprised to see Bitty opening the door, so Shitty must have texted him too.

“Uh, hi,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish hand.

“Hi,” Bitty echoes.

Jack grips the strap of his bag. “Uh. I can wait for Shits somewhere else, if you—”

“Don't be silly!” Bitty tells him, waving a hand dismissively and beckoning him in. “Go on and get settled.”

Jack nods, taking his shoes off at the door and then wandering over to the couch slowly, like he's waiting for Bitty to change his mind.

Bitty sits down on the opposite end from him and stares at the blank television. He tries to find something normal to say, but Jack throws that out the window.

“This is, uh. Really weird,” he says.

Bitty leans his head back against the back of the couch. “Um...yes.”

“I wasn't, uh. I guess I thought I'd have a lot to tell you,” Jack admits. Bitty can feel his eyes on him. “But it's...I'm not sure how.”

Bitty turns his head. “Me neither.”

Jack takes a deep breath and picks at a loose thread on the couch and says, “I miss you sometimes. Not, uh, that I want to go back, but. Well, maybe to before all of it.”

“We don't have to talk about it,” Bitty says quickly.  _ God,  _ where is Parse? “We can just—how's your off-season going?”

“That's the thing, isn't it?” Jack asks. “We never talked about it. Even while it was happening.”

Bitty clenches his jaw. “I know that.”

“Will we ever be friends again?” Jack asks.

Bitty forces himself to look at him—really look. His face is the same one Bitty fell in and then out of love with.

“I want to,” he says wetly. “I just—I don't know...how.”

Jack starts, “Maybe we can—”

There's a knock at the door.

“Shit,” Bitty says, springing to his feet. He pulls the door open and practically throws himself into Parse's arms with relief, then—

“Oh my  _ God!”  _ Bitty shoves Parse away. “Why are you so  _ sweaty?” _

Parse laughs and brushes past Bitty into the apartment. He's wearing a muscle tank and running shorts that ride up over his ass, and his hair is literally dripping onto the floor.

“Nice place, Bits—’sup, dude, I'm Kent,” he says, doing a 360. “It’s almost as nice as the house.”

“Uh,” Jack says. “Hi? I'm Jack?”

“Did you  _ run  _ here?” Bitty asks, bewildered.

Parse flops onto the couch. “What makes you say that?”

“Get  _ off  _ my  _ couch!”  _ Bitty squawks. He marches over and tries to yank Parse to his feet. “You're disgusting!”

“Baby,” Parse gasps, a hand to his chest, “not in front of the guests!”

Bitty digs his nails into Parse's wrist and plants his stance wider—Parse stumbles to his feet this time, laughing. The asshole.

“Okay, okay, I'm up.” Parse puckers his lips at Bitty and then wanders into the kitchen. “Y'all have protein powder?”

“Make yourself at home,” Bitty calls after him sarcastically.

Parse answers with a mock salute.

Bitty turns back to Jack. “Um.”

Jack's face is carefully blank.

“That would be my  _ former best friend,”  _ Bitty explains, raising his voice to make sure Parse hears him. “He's, um, hanging out with us tonight.”

“Oh, uh, I—”

The blender turns on in the kitchen.

Jack clears his throat and remarks dryly, “Seems like he'll fit right in.”

Bitty laughs. “I'm just gonna make sure he doesn't break anything. You know how I am about the appliances.”

He winces after he says it, but Jack laughs too. “Haha, yeah.”

Bitty finds Parse dumping a banana and ice cubes into the blender. He clears his throat pointedly and Parse turns to look.

“What?” Parse asks, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“You didn't have to  _ run,”  _ Bitty says, exasperated. “Seriously, what goes on in that head of yours?”

Parse shrugs. “I was on my run when you texted, heading in your direction. By the time I turned around—this was faster.”

Bitty narrows his eyes at him. “I think you wanted to show off,” he accuses.

Parse turns on the blender with a toothy smile.

 

~*~

 

Parse commandeers the shower once Shitty finally gets home, then emerges wearing one of Bitty's old Samwell sweatshirts—which rides up and exposes his midriff—and track pants that very nearly actually fit him.

Rans and Holster are home by then and Lardo is on her way.

“Holy fuck, dude!” Holster booms excitedly when he catches sight of Parse. “It's so cool to meet you!”

Jack gives Bitty a confused look. 

Bitty rolls his eyes while Ransom and Holster hound Parse with questions about the previous split, which just ended with the Devil Aces ranked second, and a potentially-serious request to sign Holster's ass.

“Parse is a famous video game player,” Bitty explains to Jack. “Which still pains me to say every time.”

“Oh,” Jack says. He tilts his head back to talk to Parse. “Haha, nice.”

Parse gives Jack a fist bump and then calls Holster on his bluff by asking for a sharpie.

After the hype dies down and Lardo arrives, they pile onto the various furniture and play the new Mario Kart.

“How are you so  _ bad _ at this?” Bitty asks, watching Parse slip on a banana peel and fly off the track yet again. “You're a professional!”

They're squished together on the couch with Lardo on Bitty's other side, and Parse's elbow digs into Bitty's ribs every time he leans into a turn.

“Do you know how different this game is?” Parse shoots back. “Oh, wait, you  _ do,  _ and you're bad at both.”

Bitty sniffs. “I'm beatin’ you at this.”

“Talk to me when you get a pentakill, baby,” Parse answers, grinning at Bitty's indignant huff.

Jack sits out the next race and wanders into the kitchen, probably for a break from all the talking. Bitty follows him, mostly to check on the jalapeno poppers Shitty put in the oven and clearly forgot about, but also to...he's not sure.

“Hey,” Jack says when Bitty nudges him out of the way. “Uh, so, your...friend.”

Bitty hums. “People keep saying that word that way.  _ Friend.” _

“He's fun.” Jack takes a sip from a glass of water.

Bitty sets a timer for five more minutes on the oven. “Some would say so.”

“You're good together,” Jack says.

Bitty's head snaps up. He splutters, “I—he's just—we're not—”

Jack smiles knowingly. “Like we weren't?”

There are tears suddenly pricking at Bitty's eyes. He doesn't know why. 

“Bittle,” Jack says. “It's okay.”

Bitty wipes at his face and laughs shakily and admits, “I don't know.”

“It's been a long time.” Jack sets his glass down, then picks it back up. “I'd—you know. I'd be happy, if you found someone.”

Bitty looks over at him curiously. “Have you?”

Jack parts his lips like might laugh, but no sound comes out. “You know it's different for me.”

“Yeah,” Bitty agrees softly. He breathes slowly. “But I, um. If you ever...want that again. I hope you find it, too.”

There's an excited shout from the other room—maybe Parse finally took something besides last place.

Jack says, “Thank you.”

Bitty closes his eyes and asks, “Is that what it takes for us to be friends again? Just—finding someone new?”

“Not exactly,” Jack says. Bitty doesn't look at him. “I think...knowing it didn't break us. That we can be happy.”

Bitty opens his eyes and promises, “I am happy.”

Jack smiles again, softer this time. “I am too.”

“I'm glad,” Bitty tells him, and means it. 

“Checkie, dearest,” Parse calls out, sing-song. He rounds the corner into the kitchen. “Guess who just—oh, shit. Sorry, am I—”

“Nah,” Jack interrupts, pushing away from the counter. He claps Parse on the shoulder as he walks past. “All yours.”

Parse looks over his shoulder for a second before walking towards Bitty. “Are you okay?” He reaches a hand out towards Bitty's face, then seems to change his mind. “You're—”

Bitty hugs him, face pressing into his neck, for the second time that night.

“I'm really good,” he whispers. “Thank you.” 

 

~*~

 

“I've got a proposal,” Parse says, sitting down and handing Bitty an ice cream cone.

Bitty licks a long stripe of sprinkles off and chirps, “Dangerous.”

Parse is staring at Bitty's mouth. “You know how Marns is always trying to hire me back?”

Bitty licks his lips, taking his time. “Mhm.”

“What if I did, like, an exclusive guest star,” Parse says. “With you.”

“Kent, I don't—”

“Think about it,” he persists. “It'd make Marns happy and you'd get a  _ ton  _ of viewers. Probably some of my old regulars. It'd be hot as hell.”

Bitty's chest aches, suddenly, as he stares at the broken swirl of his soft-serve, the way it's already starting to melt around the path his tongue traced. 

“We're a good team,” Parse says softly.

_ That's the problem,  _ Bitty thinks.  _ I want more all the time. _

One day it'll stop—he'll hit the most he gets and learn to live hungry. 

Bitty tilts his wrist and sucks the dripping ice cream off his overheated skin. “Let's do it.” 

 

~*~

 

It takes two weeks to set up; Marnie hires Parse back as a temporary employee and sets up promo for the event, including having Parse do some teasing streams on his old channel, which they reactivate.

Bitty promotes it too, and also warns his chat that with Kent to take care of he probably won't be as talkative with them. No one seems to mind—they're frothing at the bit at the idea of watching him with someone else.

They negotiate the entire scene off-camera, sitting with their knees brushing together on Kent's bedroom floor and alternating between giggling like schoolchildren and stammering like blushing virgins.

_ You know better,  _ begs the voice in Bitty's head. 

He doesn't, apparently.

Bitty starts the stream on his own, then calls Kent in. They're both fully clothed, Kent wearing tight jeans, a shirt that says  _ 'Kitten’  _ on it, and a collar with a little bell—because of course he is.

“Hey, darlin’,” Bitty says, beckoning for Kent to sit next to him on the bed. 

Kent crawls over willingly, plants his head on Bitty's shoulder, and murmurs, “Hey.”

Bitty runs a hand through Kent's hair to calm both their nerves—Kent warned him that he might get clingy, but Bitty mostly thought he meant  _ after. _

“Before we start, I really want to emphasize to y'all that this will be more intense than my normal stream,” Bitty says. He smiles sharply. “There's a kink list posted, which y'all can consider a warning and a menu.”

Kent tilts his face up and bites down on Bitty's earlobe.

“Stop that!” Bitty reprimands sharply, pulling Kent upright by the hair. He shares a look with the camera. “Y'all can see what I'm putting up with here.”

Kent tries to shake out of Bitty's hold, bristling like a cat. Fuck, it makes Bitty's dick throb already.

He grips Kent tighter and uses his other hand to force him upright, presenting him to the camera like an unruly show animal. Hand on the back of the neck, chin tilted up.

“Tell them why you're here,” Bitty says.

Kent swallows.

Bitty tweaks a nipple through his ridiculous shirt.  _ “Say  _ it.”

“Fuck,” Kent grits out. His eyes are closed, but Bitty allows that for now. “Fuck, I'm—because I need to learn.”

Bitty releases his grip and cups Kent's jaw gently, instead, tilting his face so their eyes meet. “Learn what, sweetheart?”

Kent opens his eyes, so easy. He swallows again, thickly enough that the bell makes a faint jingle. “Who I belong to,” he says softly, and there's something in his voice that shouldn't be—something that makes Bitty's collarbones feel like they're swelling closed.

_ He's good at this,  _ Bitty reminds himself. Desperately.  _ That's all it is. _

“That's good, baby,” Bitty purrs. His fingers press harder and Kent's jaw unhinges with a gasp, his tongue flicking out on reflex. “And what do you get if you behave for me, kitten?”

Kent licks his lips. “Your come, sir.”

Bitty slides his hand along Kent's jaw, then presses his thumbnail into his bottom lip. “Like every good cumslut wants.”

“Want it,” Kent agrees. He nips at Bitty's thumb. “Please.”

Bitty pulls every point of contact away. 

“We'll see,” he sniffs dismissively, peeling out of his shirt. “Take off those ridiculous clothes.”

Kent strips both more and less efficiently than Bitty'd expected—rushing to comply and practically tear them off, but in a clumsy, earnest way.

Bitty makes a show out of letting his shirt slip to the ground, then shifts to the edge of the bed and tells Kent, “Kneel.”

Kent drops to the floor and braces his hands on Bitty's knees, waiting for instructions. 

“Take my pants off,” Bitty says. He brushes Kent's cheek with a toe. “Leave the lace. I don't want your whore hands touching my cock.”

Something flashes across Kent's eyes—defiance, maybe—but he obeys. He sets Bitty's belt on the little end table, which is smart, since he knows they'll need it later, and then folds his jeans neatly without even being told.

“What an eager little thing,” Bitty drawls, pleased. “I knew you'd be easy to break.”

Kent sinks his teeth into Bitty's calf.

_ There it is,  _ Bitty thinks, and the pain doesn't truly bloom until he's slapped Kent across the face and Kent is yelping in pain, too.

“Fuck,” Bitty hisses, shaking his hand out. Kent is glowering up at him with a little welt forming on the edge of his cheekbone.

God, it might bruise. Bitty wants to splatter that pretty mark with his come.

There's so much work to do, first. 

“You little  _ brat.”  _ Bitty slips to his feet and takes Kent by the hair again, baring his throat at the same time he presses his foot against Kent's balls. “Is this what you want, hm?”

“Y-yeah,” Kent manages, his poor cock twitching and confused against the pain. “Like it.”

Bitty presses down harder, then backs away suddenly. 

“Of course you enjoy it, you little freak,” he sneers. Like it's particularly abhorrent and not at all what he's touched himself to with his face shoved in a pillow, more than once—the idea of Kent's pretty face twisted up like this. “You'd do anything just for someone to touch you.”

“Yeah,” Kent agrees. His eyes are going glassy already, this lovely haze of  _ wanting.  _ He'll go easier than Bitty wants him to, if they're not careful, and ruin the fun. 

“Get up,” Bitty orders, glancing over to check the angle on their camera and then whispering, “Still with me, hun?” when he lays Kent across his lap.

Kent presses his lips to the edge of Bitty's hip and for an entire half-second Bitty almost ends it—sees it in his mind, shutting the stream off and holding Kent close and whispering things he doesn't want to mean. He'd be the one begging.

He digs his nails into Kent's ass instead and says, “Count until you forget how,” and smiles with delight when Kent sobs on, “One.”

Bitty meant it, that first day. There's an irreplaceable thing about using his own hand, feeling the desperate heat of abused skin under his palm.

“Oh, my darling viewers,” Bitty asks, laughing coyly. “Do y'all wanna know a secret?”

He punctuates it with another spanking and Kent's broken, “Three.”

Bitty shifts their position so he can force Kent to rub off on his hip. “Our little slut is hard. He can't help himself, can he?”

“Don't,” Kent begs, but he gasps out, “F-four,” with a little jerk of his hips. His dick drags across the rough lace of Bitty's underwear and leaves a tiny wet spot.

“It's pathetic,” Bitty says. He pets Kent's hair like maybe he's sorry about it, and Kent comes on five and scrabbles against the mattress, gasping and sobbing when Bitty hits him a second time right after, and Bitty forces him upright while he's still spurting so the camera can see.

Kent's face is blotchy, but he's not quite crying, which is a pity. His cock is rubbed red from the lace and dribbling from the end of his orgasm.

He's so beautiful. Bitty closes his eyes and begs for strength, hopes it looks like mustering patience.

_ I'd tell you how lovely you are.  _ Bitty drags Kent more fully onto the bed so he's facing the camera head-on.  _ If you were really mine. _

Bitty scrutinizes Kent's face and asks, “God, can you do  _ anything  _ right?”

Kent opens his mouth, but Bitty isn't done.

“You can't even take a punishment like a proper plaything,” Bitty sneers. He slaps Kent's softening cock, the wet sound of come sticking to his palm sending a thrill up his spine. “You’re fucking getting off on it like a cheap whore.”

Kent cries out again, drawing his knees up to his chest and folding in on himself—but his thighs are spread open, leaving a pretty view.

_ Good boy,  _ Bitty thinks, but all it really earns Kent is another smack—followed this time by Bitty groping his balls roughly, digging nails into and daring him to cry.

Kent doesn't, but he begs again. “Please, please stop.”

Bitty lessens the pressure and asks, “Do you need your safeword?”

Kent shakes his head.

Bitty squeezes harder. “Then maybe you should think about what a good toy would do, kitten.”

“Please,” Kent says. His whole body is shaking. “Please, I won't come again.”

“Really?” Bitty asks. He keeps his hold and trails a finger down, pushing against Kent's perineum. “I think you're so greedy for it, you'd come just from my voice if I said to.”

Kent repeats, “If you said to.”

“Hm.” Bitty releases Kent's balls and Kent sucks in his first full breath in God knows how long. “You'd be so pretty if you were well-behaved. Do you think it's worth another try, darlings?”

The chat's been plenty active, but this is the first time Bitty's looked at it in a while. Everyone wants him to let Kent try again, as expected.

“Well, you've got some real supportive voyeurs watching tonight, honey,” Bitty tells Kent, brushing his hair away from his face for him. He smirks. “Or they're gettin’ off on watching you fail.”

“I  _ won't,”  _ Kent snaps—then curls away from Bitty when he hears his own tone.

Bitty cocks his head innocently. “You won't?”

Kent's eyes are watering again, but his jaw is clenched stubbornly. 

“Such a pretty thing,” Bitty allows himself, touching the sore spot on his cheek, the freckles underneath. “You don't mean to be so bad, do you?”

Kent shakes his head earnestly and insists, “No, no—wanna be—” he breaks off and closes his eyes, breathing hard. “It's hard.”

“It's hard bein’ good?” Bitty asks gently.

Kent nods, eyes still shut.

“Look at me.” Bitty smiles when Kent listens. “I'm gonna make it easy to be good, okay, sweetheart?”

Kent swallows and asks tentatively, “You—uh, you will?”

Bitty nods, petting fondly at Kent's hair. He makes his voice the softest it's been and explains, “I'm gonna make it hurt so much that even a little slut like you won't want it anymore, baby. Then you won't have to worry.”

There's something so endearing about the flash of fear before Kent's pupils dilate with want. They really are a good team.

Bitty kisses his temple and moves away to take up the belt. 

“Hmm.” Bitty turns to the chat again, casually teasing the leather strap down Kent's spine. “What kind of view do y'all want? Our pretty kitten's face? Or maybe his ass getting all nice and marked up?”

The chat is thoroughly divided on the issue, but luckily Bitty knows how to make a good compromise. 

“Well, if y'all can't decide, we'll just have to do our best for both,” he says. He taps Kent lightly on the flank. “Face that wall, sweetheart.”

Kent turns obediently, kneeling so that the camera has a side-view of his entire body. But he rests on his forearms and lays his cheek facing the pillows, meaning his face isn't visible, which—Kent should know better.

Bitty frowns, concerned. He lays the belt down and urges Kent to lay flat before draping over him, sliding a hand into his hair and pressing his mouth against his ear.

“What's your color, baby,” he whispers.

“Green,” Kent mumbles into the comforter. “‘S’good. Just—”

“Are you sure?” Bitty tugs a handful of hair gently, resting his face next to Kent's so they're at eye level and he can watch his expression. “Just what?”

Kent smiles lopsidedly, goofy and nearly-drunk on it. “Subspace.”

Bitty tweaks his ear affectionately. Almost everything else feels far away in that moment, caught up in how Kent is looking at him. But he knows what put that look there, and he closes his eyes and boops their noses together and asks, “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Kent promises.

Bitty takes a breath, then, and pushes himself up with one hand. “Look at the camera, baby,” he says. “They wanna see you.”

And Bitty can see the chat again, too, which is—well. He worried they wouldn't care for this little interlude—it's not exactly what the stream said on the tin. But chat is saying   _ 'did you see how he touched him??’  _ and  _ 'has K ever looked like that before?’  _

One person says,  _ 'I love watching real couples,’  _ and Bitty almost makes a sound he can't afford to. 

He grabs Kent by the hips and pulls him back onto his knees instead, busying himself with the work. Then he slides off the bed and takes the belt back in hand.

“Remember to count,” Bitty says. He folds the belt into proper spanking form and tests his stroke against the bed—mostly for the way Kent flinches.

Bitty laughs softly, dragging the belt over to tickle the backs of Kent's thighs in warning, and then lands a sharp hit across his ass.

Kent shoves his face into the comforter for one moment before he remembers himself, turning his head towards the camera again and hissing, “One.”

It's harder to rile him now that he's come once. That won't do at all—but it's also what Bitty was hoping for. 

It won't feel finished until he's left a few marks.

There's a part of him—

“F-five,” Kent sobs, and buckles off his knees.

Bitty leaves him down.

The eleventh draws blood. Bitty sucks in a breath with the sudden thrill of the sight 

There's a part of him that wants to leave a scar. He won't—won't do that to Kent unnegotiated—and he doesn't hate that he wants it because it would be wrong and irresponsible and sick.

He hates that he thinks about sinking his teeth into the scar tissue years later and listening to the sob and whispering,  _ 'Shh, remember the first time I had you, baby?’  _ and wanting the kissing after, the softness.

God, does that feel worse.

The twelfth strike leaves behind a thick welt and another tiny line of welling blood and this should be the only thing Bitty wants. What's in front of him.

What he's already taking.

The hard limit with the belt was fourteen, but Bitty drops it to the floor now. Doesn't trust the tremble in his hand.

“Get up,” he says, and Kent looks at him manages to push up on his forearms and nothing else.

Bitty moves around the bed to lean down and brush his hand through Kent's hair. “What do you think, baby?” he asks softly. “Did you learn your lesson?”

Kent's eyes go wide and he parts his lips without speaking like maybe he suspects the trick question, his breath still coming hard.

“Answer me,” Bitty chides, tugging on his hair.

“I—I don't,” Kent stammers. He looks so sweet and confused. Bitty feels another swell of affection. “You said—I don't decide.”

Bitty cups the side of his face and—God help him—kisses his forehead. He feels Kent shudder under the ghost of his lips and—

“That's so good, kitten,” he soothes warmly. “See? Look how good you can be.”

Kent blinks slowly, hovering on the edge of a smile. Too dazed to manage it, maybe.

That's alright—maybe better. 

“Now I'm gonna fuck you, sweetheart,” Bitty purrs, dragging his nails down the side of Kent's cheek before pulling his hand away. “Like good little sluts are for.”

Kent licks his lips, throat working hard. “Please.”

Bitty hums appreciatively, then glances at the camera to address the stream. “Alright, darlings. How should I play with my new toy first? Like this?” He traces a hand along Kent's ribs, grabbing gently at the side of his ass. “Or should I turn him over and see if he can bend in half?”

He keeps an eye on the chat while he pulls open a drawer to get their lube—and sighs softly when they ask for Kent on his back.

“Roll over, sweetheart,” he says, climbing onto the bed.

Kent flops onto his back, wincing, and spreads his legs.

“Good,” Bitty tells him, then, “Look at you,” as he drags a thumb along the edge of Kent's hole. 

Kent plants his feet further apart.

“Chat, didn't I tell you he'd be pretty once he behaved?” Bitty asks, resting his chin on Kent's knee to glance at the camera. He's too impatient to read the answers, though.

He lubes up a finger instead, pressing inside slowly—he's not sure how tight Kent will be after the belt.

Kent sighs with relief and the tension bleeds from his thighs, his knees falling open.

_ God. _

“You want it that badly, hm?” Bitty teases. He slips a second finger in and curves them upwards, searching. “Is this the part you were made for, baby?”

“Yeah,” Kent says, dreamy.

Bitty presses into his prostate so hard he gasps. “We'll see.”

Watching Kent's cock fill is a special kind of wonder. Bitty could do it all night—finger him hard and torture him soft and slip back inside him again. Maybe that would make him cry.

But Bitty has different plans. He gets Kent squirming in minutes, rock hard and leaking all over those abs he loves to tease the camera with, Bitty's fingers massaging relentlessly.

“Are you gonna come with your dick untouched?” Bitty asks him, sounding particularly bored about it. He knows the answer, of course. “Just at the thought of my cock in you?”

Kent tries, “I—”

“I didn't get a good view last time,” Bitty tuts disapprovingly. “You shot off in my lap like a selfish little brat.”

“I'm sorry,” Kent whimpers.

Bitty suggests, “Make it pretty this time,” and rakes his nails down Kent's thigh hard enough to earn blood under his fingernails.

There's not as much come this time, but it is very pretty. 

Kent smacks his hands against the mattress and shouts, choking on the sound on its way out, his hips twisting beautifully, and arches his back as his dick spurts and twitches weakly. 

Bitty leaves his fingers exactly where they are and waits for him to beg.

He doesn't—though he goes to hide his eyes and remembers himself just in time, his arm flopping to the bed, and tries to squirm away with his feet scrabbling against the bed until Bitty gets a hold on him.

“Kitten,” Bitty says, digging his elbow into Kent's belly. “If you can't take my fingers, I don't know how you'll ever be good enough for my cock.”

“I will!” Kent insists. He's still squirming and his pretty dick is half-hard and a lovely red color again. “Just—please—”

Bitty tilts his head, cheek brushing against a twitching knee. “Please what? Please more?”

Kent sobs desperately.

“Is that the problem, you poor thing?” Bitty drags his nails down the scratchmarks he left, mindful of the smearing blood. “Two isn't enough for such a greedy little hole?”

“D-don't make me come again,” Kent begs, his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth flashing when he gasps for air as Bitty tucks in a third finger. “Please, please, I  _ can't.” _

Bitty kisses his kneecap and whispers, “But I want you to.”

And of course, Kent does.

It's nearly dry this time and his dick doesn't even get all the way hard—just leaks a pathetic little dribble and lolls to the side with Kent's hips snap off the bed. But the  _ sound  _ he makes.

If this is the only time Bitty has him, it will be worth it for the way Kent wails and tries to cough up a word that might be Bitty's name. He'll measure everything else against it the way he used to measure the color blue.

“There we go,” Bitty says softly. “There we go, sweet thing.”

Kent's cheeks are ruddy and he hides the most of his face that he can manage against the bedspread, smearing the tears on his lashes onto his cheeks.

Bitty wants, more than maybe anything this room could give him, to make him cry for real.

It's the only thing that gets Bitty off faster than blood—the crying. But it won't be hard to come when this is over, anyway. Not with everything Kent's given him.

“Are you ready for me to fuck you?” Bitty asks, stroking a gentle hand down Kent's calf.

Kent is glancing at him sideways, his head resting at an angle so that his cheek is brushing against his own shoulder and his eyes with a patient, faraway look.

Bitty squeezes his ankle. “That one's not a trick, baby, I promise.”

Kent closes his eyes, tongue peeking out from between his lips as he steadies himself. He nods.

_ So good.  _ It makes Bitty's heart pang, how completely Kent's given himself over. 

How badly Bitty wants to keep him.

Bitty slicks himself up and nudges up against Kent's hole, thanking the Lord for company-sponsored STD panels. He'll feel everything, even if he'll only feel it once.

(They went together. Kent rested his head on Bitty's shoulder in the waiting room and played Tetris on his phone, and Bitty closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of his mousse.)

“Fuck,” Bitty hisses, pushing his way in slowly. “Oh, fuck.”

Kent covers his face with his hands and breathes. He's plenty loose—but after three orgasms Bitty expects that isn't the problem.

Bitty clucks his tongue and tugs a hand away, pining it to the mattress. “Let us see your face, sweetheart.”

Kent is trembling, his eyes wet and glassy when they aren't squeezed shut, and he says, “Too much.”

“You wanted this,” Bitty reminds him gently, and snaps his hips not that way at all. “You wanted to be my fucking toy. You begged me, sweetheart.”

Kent reaches out tentatively, his fingers brushing against Bitty's ribs, so restless and shaky. “Please?”

“Please what?” Bitty asks. He shifts onto his forearms to make the angle easier, thrusting faster. God, he won't last. He's wanted this—

“Please go slow?” Kent touches, his hands on Bitty's sides, and Bitty should punish him for that but god, god, does he want it. “Please, please, pl—”

Bitty presses his forehead to Kent's temple and exhales in a heavy sigh, slowing to a gentle rocking, and he tells him, “You've been so good.”

Kent tilts his face, breath coming in time with the way Bitty is fucking him, and his nose brushes through the sweat dripping down Bitty's jaw and Bitty opens his mouth like he could scream, or devour him, or say that he loves him and beg to hear it back, and they could kiss if Bitty weren't such a worthless fucking coward.

But he is, and he hides his face in the side of Kent's neck and bites down right above the collar.

The thing is this—

Bitty can live outside his body. He’s learned he can get hard for the camera and come while he's trying very hard to put together his grocery list, and he can tell strangers that they're sniveling cumdumpsters without blinking.

But there's nothing that can make the writhing body underneath him anything other than Kent. 

The brush of his nipples against Bitty's chest, the little whimper he makes directly into Bitty's ear when he nuzzles desperately in search of Bitty's mouth. 

Bitty slides a hand into Kent's hair and holds them both steady—Kent with the pain and Bitty with the conscious effort it takes to still make a fist when he's this wrung-out. He needs to end this.

“What do you want, baby?” he pants, dragging his tongue along the dark hickey he's left behind. “More than anything.”

“You,” Kent says, and Bitty stops breathing.

He lifts his head and tries to remember how lungs work and pleads, “That's right—you want...want my come, right?”

Kent swallows thickly. “Yeah.”

“You can have it,” Bitty promises, voice shaking. “Gonna mark you up with it, baby.”

Bitty pulls out with a hard breath and sits back on his heels. He helps Kent up, too, guiding him down off the bed and onto his knees. 

Kent waits so earnestly, his face tilted up and staring, wide-eyed, as Bitty strokes himself. His cheek is bruising, like Bitty thought, and he's so beautiful that it hurts—and it's for the video, that Bitty goes through the trouble of arranging him like this, but he wants to burn this view into his mind for himself, too.

It's so quiet suddenly, and Bitty cups Kent's face in his hand because it feels so wrong to not be touching him it almost makes him sick. This boy, this  _ beautiful  _ boy—his for a little while longer.

Bitty comes with his thumb pressed into the first mark he left. A little full circle. It forces Kent to wince and close his eyes, which is good because Bitty isn't careful with his aim.

He slides the thumb away, though, because he wants to see his come dripping down that cheek. 

“There,” Bitty says, primly and a little proud. “Let's get everyone a good look at you.”

He turns Kent to the camera full-on, and it means Kent can see himself too—Bitty swipes a finger through the come on his fluttering eyelid and slips it into his mouth, urging, “Open your eyes, sweetheart.”

Kent's breath hitches when he sees. He looks up at Bitty, just for an instant, and back at the screen. His hands are resting on his thighs with his fingers flexing restlessly.

Bitty crouches down and places a hand on the back of Kent's neck. “Look how lovely you are when you're mine, kitten.”

“Yours,” Kent repeats, and opens his mouth when Bitty feeds him another four fingers of come.

He takes everything until his face is glistening and half-cleaned, licking greedily at his lips, and then Bitty sinks to his knees and crushes him in an embrace.

“You were so  _ good,”  _ he whispers fiercely. His fingers fumble to undo the collar around Kent's throat. “So wonderful.”

Kent hides his face in Bitty's neck and starts to shake.

“Oh, darling. Oh, sweet thing.” Bitty pets Kent's hair and slides a soothing hand up his spine. He's slowly shouldering more and more of Kent's weight as he sinks against him. “That's it, baby, we're done. It's over.”

Kent mouths at Bitty's neck, just barely scraping with his teeth.

Bitty lifts his head to look at the camera. “That's it for our scene, y'all. But as promised, the stream will stay up for a while for any of you softies who wanna join us for the first part of our aftercare.”

A lot of the viewers say goodbye, but Bitty recognizes a few of his own regulars sticking around in the chat.

**_brokefamous:_ ** _ what's the second part of aftercare? _

Bitty massages lightly at Kent's scalp and winks at the camera. “That's between me and my kitten.”

They're going to go home—to Kent's home—and cuddle watching Disney movies until Kent drifts off, and then Bitty will probably cry himself to sleep. 

_ Well, that's probably a little dramatic,  _ Bitty scolds himself. He needs to get a handle on this.

“C'mon, baby,” he tells Kent. “We've gotta take care of those cuts now. Can you get up on the bed for me?”

Kent shakes his head.

“That's alright, I'll help you.” Bitty hooks an arm around him and hauls them both to their feet, but Kent whines and clings to Bitty harder.

Bitty's heart pangs. “I'm just gonna go to the dresser, baby—not even across the room. Don't you worry.”

Kent tightens his grip when Bitty tries to pull away. Bitty can barely breathe.

“Okay, okay,” he manages. “Come with me, sweetheart, I'm sorry.”

That works immediately. Kent leaves himself draped around Bitty's back but gives him the space to move again, following a dutiful quarter-step behind and getting so literally underfoot that Bitty trips over him and almost brains himself on the dresser.

It's almost funny.

Bitty scoops up everything they'll need from where it's stashed in the dresser and then urges Kent onto the bed, easily now that Bitty is climbing up with him. 

He finds that he can arrange Kent however he wants, so long as he keeps a hand on him. He  _ was  _ technically warned.

After the cuts and scratches, Bitty takes a baby wipe and gently cleans the lingering come off Kent's face, caressing his cheeks and smoothing out his brows. 

He dresses them both, then pulls Kent into his lap while he opens them each a Gatorade. 

“You were so good, baby,” Bitty reminds him, back to petting his hair. He holds up a cookie to Kent's lips and he takes a bite. “God, you were so good.”

Kent smushes his face against Bitty's chest, chewing and drinking dutifully when Bitty prompts him. Fuck, he's still so out of it. Bitty wants to go home so badly—but he doesn't feel comfortable moving Kent like this.

He holds Kent tightly instead, murmuring soft things into the crown of his head.  _ You did amazing, baby,  _ and  _ everyone loved you, kitten.  _

Eventually, Kent asks in the smallest voice Bitty's ever heard, “Will you turn the camera off?”

“Of course,” Bitty says, getting up immediately. He sees that a few people are still in the chat, so he whispers, “Goodnight, y'all,” to them as he shuts it down.

When he turns back around, Kent is curled in on himself with his knuckles white from gripping his own legs so hard, and suddenly Kent's entire body wracks with a broken, horrible sob, so unlike anything he's made that night. Like it was eating him alive.

“Oh,  _ sweetheart.”  _ Bitty scrambles back onto the bed and gathers Kent up in his arms. “Oh no, baby, what's wrong? What'd I do, darling?”

“Dropping,” Kent chokes out. He's shaking apart and really, truly crying now, tears and snot smearing into Bitty's shirt. 

Just like Bitty wanted.

He feels nauseous.

“Oh, baby.” Bitty holds him so, so close and tries to tamp down the panic creeping into his voice. “It's gonna be okay, sweetie. I'm gonna take care of you.”

Kent's chest heaves, his elbow digging sharply into Bitty's stomach. “Fuck,  _ fuck.” _

“I know, I know, it's terrible,” Bitty soothes. He rocks them gently and keeps his eyes closed and pictures it in his mind. “I'll take care of you, Kent, and it'll feel better again.”

Kent is still crying, but the sobbing dies down. He mumbles, “Hurts.”

“Shh, I know.” Bitty checks his watch—he gave Kent painkillers almost an hour ago. “I'm so sorry, baby. I'm sorry I—”

“No,” Kent says. “Wanted you.”

Bitty has to fight to unhinge his jaw—tastes blood, realizes he clamped his teeth into his own tongue. “What—what do you want now?”

“You,” Kent says again. He's not lucid—he doesn't— “And home.”

“We can do that,” Bitty promises. He braces himself. “I need to let you go to do that, sweetie. But I'll hold your hand the whole time, I promise.”

Kent nods, nuzzling his face against Bitty's damp shirt one last time before giving him the space to get up. 

Bitty tugs on Kent's hand gently, pulling him off the bed so Bitty can reach their bags. He consolidates the necessities into just Kent's, shoving in phones, painkillers and Arnica cream, the house keys.

The panic has subsided, he realizes. So has everything else, save for the pesky tremor in his hand. He stares at it numbly, turning the palm up and trying to make the fingers clench into a steady fist.

Bitty acknowledges, for five entire seconds, the possibility that he might be dropping too.

And folds it calmly away. Kent needs him more.

He shoulders the bag and abandons the other one, making a mental note to text Marnie about it, then leads Kent back into the lobby while he orders an Uber with one hand. They're very much not taking the train tonight.

Kent wraps around him as soon as they're stationary, and has to be coaxed into his own seatbelt when the car gets there. 

Bitty must talk to the driver, because he always does. He doesn't remember it, though, just has the image of Kent with his head on Bitty's shoulder glitching in his mind while he unlocks the front door and drags them both up the two flights of stairs.

Fuck, he's so fucking tired. His arms ache and it's hard to keep two pairs of feet under him. 

Kent, thank fucking God, crawls onto the bed and burrows under the covers in a little ball. Bitty stares at him, eyes wet, and then pulls a fresh Gatorade out from the case that Kent keeps under his desk.

“Drink this, baby,” he says softly, pressing the open bottle into Kent's hand. “Can you do that for me?”

Kent takes dutiful, tiny sips. 

Bitty shivers. Fucking Scrappy and the fucking thermostat. He looks over at Kent, who's shivering too, and sighs.

“Baby, I'm gonna go turn the AC down, okay?” He brushes Kent's hair away from his face and kisses his forehead. “I'll be right back. Is that okay?”

Kent nods, shrinking even smaller under the covers.

Bitty walks briskly out of the room and finds the thermostat on the first floor. It's set to 72—Jeff’s temperature.

Lord, what a disaster.

Bitty grabs chocolate and granola bars from the pantry while he's down here, at least, and hurries back.

Kent's finished the entire Gatorade bottle by the time Bitty gets back, and he looks up with flat eyes and says, “You don't love me.”

Bitty shuts the door slowly. He sets the food down on the desk and climbs into bed. “You don't really think that.”

Kent worms his way under Bitty's arm and sighs softly, his fingers gripping the hem of Bitty's shirt.

_ Not like this,  _ Bitty begs him silently, his fingers carding through his hair and almost no longer shaking.  _ Don't make me say it.  _

The beautiful thing—the one that will break Bitty's heart in the morning, when it starts back up—is that Kent still gives up everything Bitty asks.

 

~*~

 

Bitty wakes up to Kent trying to crawl out from under his arms. He tightens his hold, in no way seeking petty revenge for last night, and murmurs, “Shh, don't.”

“Let go,” Kent snaps, and—

“Oh.” Bitty scoots away, to the cold side of the bed. He blinks his eyes open and bites his lip at the sight of Kent's sullen expression. “Um—”

Kent sits up and scrubs at his face. “Fuck, sorry. I just—we overslept, I've gotta—”

“You can't be serious,” Bitty says, incredulous. “You're not gonna stream.”

Kent looks at him blankly. It's probably part of why Bitty's going to hell, but he still gets a little thrill at the sight of his bruised cheek.

“I've gotta,” Kent says. He smirks, counterpoint to the deep bags under his eyes. “The fans await, baby.”

“Sweetheart, I say this with love,” Bitty tells him. “But you look like someone beat the hell out of you last night.”

Kent stands up, stumbles before he gets his feet back under him, and stretches casually, like when a cat falls off something and acts like it was on purpose. “Mm, thanks for that, by the way.”

“Are you even over the drop?” Bitty asks, a little desperately. 

Kent's voice gets the edge back to it, like a warning shot. “I’m doing this.”

Bitty crosses his arms and sucks in a breath. “Fine, but let me—help.”

“Going soft on me, Checkie?” Kent chirps, his tone going warm again.

Bitty suddenly gets the strangest feeling—being back at the coffee shop and juggling a pile of mugs and plates as he carries them to the kitchen. He rolls out of bed and brushes his hand against Kent's arm and says, “I've always been soft on you, sweetheart. I could've eaten you alive by now.”

Kent laughs breathlessly. His fingers start to close on Bitty's wrist, but he drops them when Bitty turns his head in surprise.

Bitty pulls the Arnica cream and painkillers out of Kent's bag and tosses them onto the bed. He swallows thickly, stepping closer, slipping his fingers under Kent's shirt.

“I…” Kent tries, but it dies on his tongue and he lifts his arms, and Bitty pulls the shirt over his head slowly. He drops it to the floor and drags his eyes up the length of Kent's upper body. No marks, except for the dark hickey high on his neck.

The tremor in Bitty’s hands is back. He slips them under the waistband of the sweatpants he dressed Kent in last night and lets them shake as he drags them down with his entire body.

He's kneeling on the ground, breath caught in his throat, staring at the scratch marks he left on Kent's thigh. 

“Bits,” Kent says.

Bitty looks up, caught in a kind of wonder, trying to remember how to pray or, barring that, tear his eyes away from the raw and aching thing on Kent's face.

He uncaps the Arnica cream and rubs it into the marks, his fingertips tingling as he caresses the thin skin on the deep crease of a thigh where he can feel a pulse. 

There's the familiar urge to sink his teeth in, of course. Or to nuzzle gently, his temple brushing incidentally against Kent's soft cock—an apology not for the pain, but for the thought that it could mean Bitty would want to leave.

He does neither, and rises to his feet to tend to the cuts on Kent's ass. 

“I've gotta shower, you know,” Kent says belatedly.

Bitty slides his hands down his ribcage, pressing a thumb into the small of Kent's back before he rubs in the cream. “Honey,” he says warmly. “Shut up.”

“You're not the boss of me anymore.” Kent is wobbling on his feet, though, twitching pleasantly under Bitty's care.

“Yes I am,” Bitty says absently. He taps Kent on the flank, carefully avoiding the bruising. “Wash your hair and get on with your terrible idea.”

Kent grabs the bottle of painkillers and swallows four dry. “Yes, sir.”

Bitty sinks down onto the bed as soon as Kent wraps a towel around his waist and leaves the room. He allows himself a few moments, then gets back up.

There's more to do—he sets out a sugar cookie and protein bar, hopefully so he can bully Kent into eating, and fluffs up a pillow to put on the chair to make sitting marginally less uncomfortable.

Kent returns with styled hair and expertly applied makeup—his cheek bruise isn't visible at all and his eyebags make him look minorly hungover instead of actively dying. 

He left the hickey on his neck, because of course he did.

Bitty plops down in the second chair and shrugs when Kent raises an eyebrow at him after finding the clothes laid out for him on the bed. 

Maybe it'll work out fine.

 

~*~

 

_ “Fuck.”  _ Kent bangs a fist on the desk, which is not a thing Bitty's ever seen him do before today. “Jesus, I'm so  _ bad.” _

Bitty rolls his chair over and bumps it into Kent's, trying to lighten the mood. He rests his chin on Kent's shoulder and chirps, “I'm still not very good at this game, but I think you're actually supposed to hit your opponent with your abilities?”

“Fuck off,” Kent snaps, jerking away from him.

Bitty narrows his eyes. It's obviously the subdrop making Kent so irritable, and he's  _ trying  _ to be understanding. Especially seeing as he's not much better off himself still.

But he  _ said  _ this would be a terrible idea.

Kent says, “I hate this fucking game.”

Bitty can't just sit here and let Kent make himself miserable.

**_Bitty (11:47 AM):_ ** _ SOS _

**_Holster (11:47 AM):_ ** _ We're watching _

**_Ransom (11:47 AM):_ ** _ Is parse ok? _

**_Bitty (11:48 AM):_ ** _ Obviously not.  _

**_Shitty (11:48 AM):_ ** _ What's happening? _

**_Ransom (11:49 AM):_** _How can we help?_

**_Holster (11:49 AM):_ ** _ Parse is basically freaking out on stream he's normally so chill _

**_Lardo (11:50 AM):_ ** _ Yikes _

**_Bitty (11:51 AM):_ ** _ You all have accounts right? Log on and play with me _

**_Holster (11:51 AM):_ ** _ You got it _

Bitty closes his eyes, sending up thanks to anyone listening, and then forcibly deposits himself in Parse's lap—and prays he doesn't get thrown off in front of thousands of people.

“Hi, Parsnips!” he says cheerfully, ignoring Parse's startled  _ 'what the fuck?’  _ and stealing the headphones off Parse's head. “I think we can all agree this is going terribly, right?”

“Get off,” Parse whines, but he gives up his hold on the mouse in favor of wrapping an arm around Bitty's waist.

Thank God.

Parse's character respawns and Bitty runs out of the base.

“Oh my God, wrong  _ lane,”  _ Parse says. “At least get off my account! You're gonna tank my ELO.”

Bitty corrects course and heads towards the right part of the map. “Don't tell me how to run my own coup. And, sweetheart, we both know you were tanking your own ranking just fine.”

Parse hooks his chin over Bitty's shoulder and gives the camera an exaggeratedly woeful look.

Thankfully, their team votes to surrender the match shortly after, and Bitty switches to his own account. He adjusts Parse's camera to capture both their faces better and changes the stream title to  _ 'Saturday Morning Layers - HIJACKED by Checkie.’ _

Holster and the others have logged on by then and started up a discord voice chat, which Bitty joins. 

_ “I  _ wanna be middle lane!” Holster is shouting, his voice reverberating across at least two other microphones in the apartment. Bitty winces and adjusts the sound mixer.

Bitty clears his throat and says, “I'm middle lane, because it is absolutely the only thing I know how to play.”

“No fair, dude,” Ransom complains.

Bitty rolls his eyes, adding all four of them to his party. “Shouldn't you two former d-men be bickering over who gets to play support?”

Holster protests, “That is stereotypical and  _ hurtful.” _

Parse huffs out a laugh against Bitty's ear.

“Also,” Ransom says, “Shitty and Lardo wanna do the duo-lane together.”

Lardo confirms, “Gonna fuck some shit up.”

Shitty asks, “Can I curse on this thing?”

“I don't think I could stop you,” Bitty answers.

They get entered into a match, and the squabbling over who plays what continues.

“Listen up!” Bitty gestures with one hand even though none of them can see him. “Ransom, play jungle. Holster, sit in solo lane and  _ please  _ do not leave it to follow Rans around, that does not work.”

Parse, apparently coming to terms with his new lot in life, chirps, “You ever get tired of being so bossy?”

“No,” Bitty says. “Finish your breakfast.”

They all do what he says, obviously.

The match starts up and Parse gleefully backseat drives, pestering Bitty into making ridiculous decisions like trying to actually fight the enemy middle-laner.

“Ack!” Bitty yelps, using his dash ability to run away instead. He glares steadily into the camera when Parse cackles at him.

“You totally coulda taken ‘em,” Parse says.

Bitty huffs, trying to hide the smile creeping onto his face. He can feel Parse coming back to himself. “You hush, I made—”

“Hey, Bittle. Are you winning?”

Bitty's eyebrows raise. “Jack?”

“I leave the apartment for twenty minutes and I come back to everyone screaming at their computers,” Jack says. “You're a bad influence, eh?”

Parse chimes in, “The  _ worst  _ influence.”

Bitty ignores them. “Ransom, go gank solo lane before Holster gets himself killed.”

Jack says, “Ah, there's Captain Bittle. Missed that voice.”

Bitty snorts, then reminds him, “Sweetheart, you know thousands of people can hear you, right?”

“Oh.” Jack pauses. “Do any of them like hockey?”

“Probably  _ some  _ of them!” Bitty sighs exasperatedly.

Parse squeezes Bitty's side and suggests, “Go fight that jungler.”

“No!” Bitty protests. “Absolutely not!”

“They're low on health and trying to steal your red buff—you've gotta punish that shit, babe.” Parse smirks, which absolutely does not make Bitty's heart flutter. “You  _ like _ punishment, don't you?”

Bitty reaches around and smacks him on the arm. “Don't you start with me too.”

Parse says, “Case in point, chat.”

Bitty is already running over to the enemy jungler, though, because he's an absolute fool for anything that could make Kent smile.

He dashes around the wall and yells, “Aah!” and then, “Oh my  _ God!”  _ when he attacks, fumbling to aim his abilities.  _ “Kent!” _

“You've got it!” Parse urges, tightening his arm and leaning in close. “Use your ultimate, you've got—”

Bitty takes the shot with his eyes closed and doesn't open them until the game announces, “Enemy defeated!”

“Fuck yeah, Bits!”

“Holy hell that's sick!”

“Haha, nice.”

Bitty throws his hands up in the air and squeals excitedly, which might objectively be embarrassing, but he doesn't care. “Oh my God, I did it!”

“Hell yeah!” Parse says warmly. He nuzzles his face against the underside of Bitty's jaw, so tender and jubilant and with his smile pressing into the side of his neck. “You're amazing, baby.”

Bitty watches his face turn red on the screen. “Honey,” he whispers, “the camera.”

Parse's head snaps up, and he stares at the immediate  _ code red panic  _ happening in chat. 

“Uh, hey, chat,” he says, doing a sheepish mock-salute. “Any chance we can all just collectively pretend you didn't see that?”

They cannot. Bitty stares blankly at the massive influx of messages—entirely supportive, at least.

“Yo, Bits,” Ransom says, “congrats and all, but like, idk, maybe come defend mid-lane?”

Bitty clears his throat and looks back at the game. “Um, yeah.”

Parse rests his chin on Bitty's shoulder again, his fingers skimming under his shirt tentatively.

Bitty takes his hand off the keyboard and lays it flat over Kent's, holding him there, letting him feel the way his breath is held and his body is quivering, until Kent exhales behind him. 

Then, Bitty puts his fingers back to the keyboard and finishes what he started.

 

~*~

 

They end the stream a little under two hours later, Bitty thanking his host of guest stars and primly ignoring the 80% of the stream chat that's still discussing whether or not they've all witnessed a mass hallucination.

He's still tired, and aching, and finding it hard to breathe without crying. It occurs to him that he never ate his own breakfast.

“Bitty,” Kent says. His voice is rough and questioning, and Bitty turns to him with his lips gently parted and entirely useless.

Kent shifts the pillow he's been sitting on, drawing his legs up onto the chair with his knees open so that Bitty fits between them, all twisted up and too close and entirely apart.

Bitty turns all the way around, kneeling between Kent's legs. He wobbles, off-balance, then steadies himself by bracing on Kent's biceps.

There are words Bitty could say, maybe. The ones he wanted to spill out the night before, or ones he'd find if he carved down to the core of whatever thing they'll call this on the far side of the next five minutes.

He blinks until the tears in his eyes roll down his cheeks, cups Kent's face in one hand, and kisses him so, so softly instead. Kent laughs into his mouth, like there's a joke, and Bitty laughs and laughs too until his stomach hurts.

There's no core in the center. Just a Saturday morning first kiss and aching bruises from the night before, the gentle brush of fingertips against a smiling mouth that tastes like salt. 

Bitty digs his nails in, and holds on.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Layers of the Inferno is a totally fake game that I made up and really, really want to exist now. I restrained myself from writing SO many scenes of Kent and Bitty just playing the stupid thing. You're welcome.
> 
> Bittyparse is my not-so-secret OTP and I've missed them _so much._ If you wanna scream about them with me, I'm most active on [my Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/summerfrost) these days, but I do also still have [Tumblr!](https://www.yoursummerfrost.tumblr.com)


End file.
